Perils of Populism?: Populist Chief Executives and Judicial Independence

Democracies no longer erode overnight. It is because military coups and auto-coups are not observed as frequently in the post-Cold War era as it was before. However, democratic backsliding is far from extinct. Data show that a third wave of autocratization is unpacking since the 1990s. Yet, the types of democratic backsliding have recently changed in the last few decades. The most common form of democratic backsliding is now executive aggrandizement, in which the executive branch gradually increases control over democratic institutions, and slowly erodes democratic checks on incumbents. One major constraint on the executive is the judiciary. The independence of the judiciary is fundamental to liberal democracy. Yet, data show that judicial independence is in decline in many democracies. This paper asks why we observe a decline in the independence of the judiciary in many countries. In this paper, I argue that highly populist chief executives who can influence political decision making use their power to undermine judicial independence, and expand their scope of influence. Having a unique set of ideas, populist executives understand politics as a Manichean conflict between the virtuous people and the corrupt elites. They glorify election results in the name of the people, and dislike any constraints. Populist chief executives who control the executive and the legislative branches to a large extent can pass policies they prefer without the need to compromise their policy preferences to reach a consensus with the opposition parties. In this way, they can make constitutional amendments, pass judicial reforms or even decide to go for a referendum for a new constitution, and therefore gradually tailor a loyal judiciary. Using the Varieties of Democracy dataset, the Global Populism Database, the ParlGov as well as original data on 46 democracies from 1998 to 2018, initial results show that the more populist the chief executive is, the greater the decline of judicial independence is. Moreover, this effect is dependent on the legislative seat share of the chief executive’s party. Therefore, populist chief executives who control a large seat share in the legislature have a more dramatic negative effect on judicial independence than equally populist chief executives with a smaller legislative seat share.