Collaborative Research: Fitting More Pieces into the Puzzle of Judicial Behavior: A Multi-Country DataBase and Program of Research

该项目的目标是鼓励扩大根据可复制的数据对法院、法官及其行为进行的系统比较分析。这个项目最终将建立一个多国数据库，该数据库将（1）侧重于从可管理的最不同制度的国家样本中选出的最高法院，（2）选择半个世纪以来其正式或报告的判决的年度样本，（3）根据主代码簿对随样本判决一起的意见的明显内容进行编码，衡量一组与各种分析利益相关的共同变量，这些变量可以在所有被纳入的国家中进行同等衡量，（4）通过对一组系统变量进行编码，可能无法在所有国家测量的特定变量。这些数据将被创建和存档，供公众使用。然而，私人侦探也将使用它们来分析一组重要的初步研究问题，包括（1）这些法院和其他法院是否定期裁决具有明显重要政策后果的案件，或者他们中的大多数人是否花了大部分时间解决仅具有狭隘政策意义的法律的争议？，(2)“实际上富人总是走在前面”吗？(3)国家法院的司法独立性、职能表现和对现任政权的支持是否随着政治过渡、宣布的国家危机或同情法官的行政任命而变化？

The objective of the project is to encourage the expansion of systematic comparative analyses of courts, judges and their behavior based on replicable data. This project will eventuate in a multi-country data base that will (1) focus on the top courts from a manageable most different systems sample of nations, (2) select annual samples of their formal or reported decisions over a half century, (3) code the manifest content of the opinions accompanying the sampled decisions according to a master codebook, measure a set of common variables that are relevant to various analytical interests and that can be equivalently measured across all included nations, and (4) supplement the common variables by coding a set of system-specific variables that might not be measured across all nations.These data will be created and archived for public use. However, the P.I.s also will use them to analyze an important set of initial research questions, including (1) do these and other courts regularly decide cases with apparently important policy consequences, or do most of them spend most of their time resolving legal disputes of only narrow policy significance?, (2) Do "the haves in fact always come out ahead"? (3) Do judicial independence, functional performance, and support of incumbent regimes by national courts vary with political transitions, proclaimed national crises or with executive appointments of sympathetic judges?