According to popular wisdom, judicial independence and the rule of law are essential features of modern democracy. Drawing on the growing comparative literature on courts, we unpack this claim by focusing on two broad questions: How does the type of political regime affect judicial independence?...

After a historical survey of the literature, this chapter puts forward a new analytical scheme to capture variation in comparative judicial review. The earliest, and still relevant, classification developed in the scholarly literature turns on the difference between judicial review of...