Independent judges are thought to promote democratic regime survival by allowing perceived violations of rules limiting arbitrary power to be challenged non-violently in a fair setting, governed by transparent rules. Yet, judges are often subjected to public shaming and politically motivated...

Theoretical accounts of compliance with court orders emphasize the importance of transparency. Most empirical studies of compliance center on high profile political cases, largely ignoring the high-volume, quotidian claims against the state for basic services that constitute the largest share of...

Normative concerns often lead designers of political institutions to insulate judges from direct accountability and oversight that creates pressure on their decision making. However, such insulation undermines performance-relevant incentives and can give rise to shirking by judges. To understand...

Do beliefs in the credibility of institutions designed to constrain the state from violating rights affect the behavior of all individuals equally? We argue that the effect depends on how insulated an individual is from rights violations. We test this argument against individual-level data on...

Followers of law, politics and business commonly relate stories of individuals who appear to predict an expected self-performance level below what they believe likely. Candidates, attorneys and firms sometimes seem to under-predict their own capacities. Insofar as individuals typically construct...