Theory about the relevance of soft law abounds; empirical research on the topic does not. This study begins to even out this imbalance by not only developing a number of conjectures based on institutional economics, but also by testing them empirically. Based on all 2,289 soft laws concluded by...

Rational politicians are interested in judicial independence (JI) in order to make their promises credible. But if politicians' preferences deviate from the dicta of the judiciary, they also have incentives to renege on judicial independence. These two conflicting aspects are measured by two...