Suchergebnisse

Latin American democracies have developed institutions to empower citizens against the state. This article brings attention to an often overlooked, but key, actor in these processes: the legal complex. I argue that the content of reforms designed to strengthen the rule of law partially reflects the interests of politically influential collective legal actors. Political influence is defined as a function of alliances with civil society and embeddedness within decision-making arenas of the state. To develop this argument, the article analyses the slow building of Brazil's Public Defenders' Office (PDO). I argue that the office's initial institutional weakness resulted from defenders' fragile political position relative to that of prosecutors and the bar during Brazil's constitutional transition. Its eventual strengthening sixteen years later resulted from changes to the legal complex alliance in its favour, the formation of connections between defenders and civil society, and increased PDO access to policymaking spaces.

Popular attitudes towards crime in Latin America induce local legislators to support harsh sentencing frameworks. What, therefore, explains the adoption of non-prison sentences across the region? Using Brazil as a case study, this article claims that sentencing reform is a consequence of the growing autonomy of bureaucrats who manage the criminal justice system. Insulated from patronage networks and granted broad mandates to pursue solutions to pressing penal crises, these policy elites use their position in the state to develop new rules and facilitate their approval despite popular opposition to measures that limit the state's punitive capacity. The findings point to the importance of bureaucratic autonomy for the enactment of policies that can benefit the underprivileged but do not enjoy widespread support from voters. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract
Why do some constitutional transitions trigger the emergence of progressive judicial activism? This article addresses this question through an analysis of the creation of the Colombian Constitutional Court and its subsequent activism toward rights in general and the right to health in particular. This research suggests that ideational variables are crucial to explain this outcome. On the one hand, the Constitutional Court's behavior reflects the dominance of the institutional conception that it is the judiciary's role to help fulfill the promises of the constitutional text. On the other, programmatic beliefs about the relationship between the rule of law and market-driven economic growth led powerholders to create the court and appoint judges with this orientation. The emergence of progressive judicial activism in Colombia, this analysis suggests, was the unexpected outcome of purposeful political choices made by proponents of neoliberal economics.