ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on high court behavior and categorizes the study of courts in developing democracies into three groups: institutionalist; domain-of-competency; and compliance. It argues that these three categories of studies are linked by two conditions that motivate courts' decision-making logic: the necessity to avoid sanction by the government, and the necessity to build institutional capacity. The chapter addresses the decision-making processes of individual judges. Studies of the judicial power in developing democracies indicate strongly that political society and public support in the form of both specific and diffuse support play important roles in empowering the judiciary and, thereby, constructing the environment under which courts make decisions. The chapter then examines that the Chilean public strongly acknowledges the independence of the Chilean judiciary. Moreover, Chileans have acknowledged the independence of Chilean courts since the return to democracy in 1990. It also focuses on the four conceptual environments of the judicial independence/judicial legitimacy relationship: low/low, high/low, low/high, and high/low.
