This project focuses on “elite recruitment” of the members of the Spanish Constitutional Court. Empirically it is grounded upon a data set on all the judges selected to serve on this highest court in Spain since its creation following the country’s transition to democracy in 1976-1982. The data set contains variables on their background such as age, educational background, political affiliation, who appointed them, how long did each judge serve, etc.
This project should fit well with this ECPR workshop for three reasons. First, it is a single, “do-able” project, one that I believe would work well within the proposed comparative framework proposed. Second, the project could easily be developed into a much larger project—either comparatively by replicating the same study with the other southern European countries of Portugal and Italy or with the German Constitutional Court (since it was similarly critical to that country’s successful institutionalization of democracy in the 1950s and onward, having faced many of the same issues such a human rights and questions of federalism) or going deeper into the Spanish case by linking this socio-political data set to variables involving the cases the Court decided. Third, this project builds on several of my earlier published studies which I would love to return to in some form. They include the following:
“Political Transition, Social Development and Legal Mobilization: The Case of Spain” with Micheal W. Giles. American Political Science Review 83 (September, 1989): 817-833.
“The Basque Region” and “Spain.” In Herbert M. Kritzer, ed. Legal Systems of the World: A Political, Social, and Cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. June 2002.
“Spain.” With Micheal W. Giles. In Alan N. Katz, editor, Legal Traditions and Systems: An International Handbook. Greenwood Press, September, 1986.
