The German Basic Law is open for an interpretation that would allow the Constitutional Court to test the normative adequacy of most statutes. If the court does, it could be modelled as the supervisor of the legislator, i.e., of the agent of the people. The model predicts collusion between the...

This paper seeks to explain how courts in new and vulnerable democracies acquire legitimacy and thus become credible actors able to facilitate or even foster the consolidation of democracy. It analyses the case of the Constitutional Court of Benin (CCB), demonstrating that governmental...

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...

Most efforts to detect the consequences of divided government in German federalism by analyzing legislative statistics have been unsuccessful. Therefore, there is still much debate in Germany about the gridlock potential of divided government, as there is in the United States. Using a...

This paper shows that the availability of dual citizenship, or here Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI), leads to higher naturalization rates in the country of residence. The analysis is based on three distinct naturalization rates, calculated on the basis of annual immigration flows and...