Judicial independence and political competition: Electoral and defamation disputes in Russia and Ukraine

The rule of law promotes justice, democracy, and economic prosperity. Independent courts are indispensable to the rule of law so it is important to study their origins. This dissertation examines judicial independence, defined as judicial output that does not systematically reflect extra judicial actors' preferences. I propose a "strategic pressure" theory that challenges the generalizability of existing theories. It posits that in unconsolidated, "electoral" democracies political competition hinders, rather than promotes judicial independence. Electoral democracies lack essential democratic institutions, such as a stable party system and a vibrant free press, and display high levels of uncertainty. In this context, political competition increases the benefits that weak incumbents get from dependent courts and expands the set of cases that become politicized.; I test the theoretical predictions on two electoral democracies, Russia and Ukraine. The two states have very similar political, economic, and legal trajectories, but differ significantly on the main independent variable. Political competition has intensified in Ukraine and waned in Russia since the late 1990s. To gauge the level of judicial independence in Russia and Ukraine, I propose a new quantitative measure. The multi-stage win-rate analysis of trial outcomes compares the probability of going to court and the probability of winning for different types of plaintiffs according to their political affiliation. I implement the measure using four original data sets with 800 defamation lawsuits and 252 electoral registration disputes heard in the lower courts. The data sets include extensive background information on 4731 actual and potential litigants. I supplement the quantitative analysis with 92 semi-structured interviews.; The analysis confirms the predictions of the "strategic pressure" theory. Ukrainian judicial output is more reflective of the preferences of incumbent politicians than Russian judicial output. In disputes over registration for parliamentary elections, Ukrainian pro-government candidates were 27% more likely to win than opposition-affiliated plaintiffs; Russian pro-government candidates' advantage in court was more than two times smaller. In addition, Ukrainian incumbents win 99% of defamation lawsuits and receive three times as much money as opposition-affiliated plaintiffs do. By contrast, in Russia government-affiliated and opposition-affiliated litigants have a similar win-rate and receive similar moral damage awards.