Judicial Backsliding Under Populist Governments: The Role of Trust in the Judiciary
Abstract
Populists are coming into office in more and more countries around the world. Where we have already witnessed populist governments, we frequently observe attacks on judicial independence. So far, most studies argue that politicians do not undermine judicial independence if support for the judiciary is high since the fear of a public backlash at the ballot box is too high. However, we have rarely seen evidence of this. We test whether this mechanism applies for populists in office. We test whether the likelihood of attacks on the judiciary decreases with an increase in trust in the institution. However, our results show that trust in the judiciary does not condition whether politicians attack the judiciary neither when populists nor when mainstream politicians lead the government. But, our results do confirm assumptions that are often formulated on the basis of anecdotal evidence: Once populists join office, the independence of the judiciary significantly decreases.
