Diffusion versus strategic action? : the creation of West African constitutional courts revisited

The creation of constitutional courts is a political affair because the judicial review of laws and competences potentially curb the power of the elected branches. This paper seeks to refine the explanations for both the spread of constitutional courts and the extent of their formal independence. Our comparison of nine former French colonies in West Africa that have all introduced constitutional courts since 1990 is built on (a) the combination of the two competing theories of international diffusion and domestic strategic action and (b) a new, theoretically and arithmetically refined index of formal independence. The empirical analysis in this area of similar political context supports the argument that global trends and "natural" foreign reference models (namely, France) set a minimum standard and that interests in political insurance determine the deviations from (in this case Gallic) institutional diffusion. As Francophone West Africa is one of the most dynamic arenas of third wave democratic experiments, these findings offer not only insight into a largely neglected geographic area but also a better general understanding of the political role of constitutional courts in new democracies with a colonial past.