COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Fitting More Pieces into the Puzzle of Judicial Behavior: A Multi-Country Data Base and Program of Research

该项目的目标是鼓励根据可复制的数据扩大对法院、法官及其行为的系统比较分析。该项目最终将形成一个多国数据库，该数据库将(1)重点关注来自可管理的大多数不同系统国家样本的最高法院，(2)选择半个世纪以来正式或报告裁决的年度样本，(3)根据主代码手册对抽样裁决附带的意见的明确内容进行编码，测量一组与各种分析兴趣相关的共同变量，这些变量可以在所有包括的国家中同等地测量，并且(4)通过编码一组可能无法在所有国家测量的系统特定变量来补充共同变量。这些数据将被创建并存档以供公众使用。然而，私家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，或者大多数法院是否将大部分时间花在解决只有狭隘政策意义的法律纠纷上？(2)“富人实际上总是领先吗？”(3)国家法院的司法独立、职能表现和对现任政权的支持是否会随着政治过渡、宣布的国家危机或对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?