Latin American Courts Going Public: Institutional Innovations for Social Participation in the Judicial Decision-Making Process

近年来，拉丁美洲宪法和最高法院进行了体制创新，促进民间社会、广泛的利益集团和其他利益攸关方参与其决策进程。一方面，这些体制安排寻求通过不同的机制，如公开听证、监督委员会或法庭之友，让第三方积极参与司法决策。另一方面，法院促进创建官方网站、广播和电视频道，以及使用社交媒体，其明确目标是增进公众知识，促进对其工作的辩论，并扩大司法程序的受众。为什么拉丁美洲的法院如此关注自己的公众形象？他们采用社会参与机制的动机和环境是什么？它们的使用对法院与公众和民选政府部门的关系有哪些影响？社会参与机制的实施对法院行为的民主质量以及法院在民主制度中的作用具有潜在的强烈影响。这一政治学项目描绘了一种回答上述问题的理论和方法战略，重点是拉丁美洲拥有宪法审查权的最高法院，该地区是这一趋势的先行者。我们将对18个国家的司法决策过程中的现有社会参与机制进行首次系统测绘。我们将介绍法院在实践中使用这种机制的范围和强度。在两个国家的实地工作将进一步有助于解释其实施的原因和效果。我们假定，社会政治制度以及法官的不同特点导致法院在体制创新方面的参与程度不同。我们的研究包含了经典司法政治学文献的贡献，即战略和概念账户。该项目采用了多种方法。它将定性比较分析(QCA)应用于区域一级的评估，并对案例研究进行过程追踪。我们认为这项研究是未来在拉丁美洲内外进行调查的基础。此外，我们通过添加这些今天被比较政治文学忽视的法院行为的新组成部分，为理论发展做出了贡献。

In recent years Latin American constitutional and supreme courts have engaged in institutional innovations that promote the inclusion of civil society, broad interest groups, and other stakeholders in their decision-making processes. On the one hand, these institutional arrangements seek the active integration of third parties into judicial decision-making through different mechanisms, such as public hearings, monitoring commissions, or amicus curiae. On the other hand, courts promote the creation of official websites and radio and television channels, as well as the use of social media with the explicit goal of improving public knowledge, enabling debate about their work, and broadening the audiences of judicial processes. Why are Latin American courts so concerned about their public standing? What are the motivations and circumstances that have led them to adopt social participation mechanisms? Which are the effects of their use on the courts’ relationship with the public and the elected branches of government? The implementation of social participation mechanisms has a potentially strong impact on the democratic quality of court behavior and, in general, on the role of courts in democratic regimes.This political science project delineates a theoretical and methodological strategy to answer the above mentioned questions, focusing empirically on the highest courts with constitutional review powers in Latin America, a region that is pioneering in this trend. We will present the first systematic mapping of existing social participation mechanisms in judicial decision-making processes for 18 countries. We will cover the scope and intensity with which courts are using such mechanisms in practice. Fieldwork in two countries will further contribute to explaining the reasons and effects of their implementation. We assume that the different characteristics of the sociopolitical regime as well as of the judges sitting at the bench result in varying levels of court engagement in institutional innovation. Our research embraces the contribution of classical judicial politics literature, i.e. the strategic and ideational accounts. The project uses a multi-methods approach. It applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) for the assessment at the regional level and process tracing for the case studies. We conceive this research as a basis for future investigations within and beyond Latin America. Furthermore, we contribute to theory development by adding these novel components of court behavior today overlooked by the comparative political literature.