The American judiciary, like other branches of government, has increasingly come under attack as both ideologically driven and polarized. At the same time, scholars have limited understanding of the extent to which politicization has shaped the courts or how its influence varies among tiers of the judiciary and across states. We present a simple theory of judicial politicization that models the...

This paper develops a theory of bureaucratic influence on distributive politics. While there exists a rich literature on the effects of institutions such as presidents, electoral systems, and bicameralism on government spending, the role of professional bureaucrats has yet to receive formal scrutiny. In the model, legislators bargain over the allocation of distributive benefits across districts...

This article reviews the strides and challenges of the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS), based on an assessment of the results achieved and the constraints for effective consolidation of it objectives. The article focuses on three issues: the process of implementing the SUS, highlighting the institutional and political constraints, some of which as effects of previous policies; st...

Ethnic divisions, according to empirical democratic theory, and commonsense understandings of politics, threaten the survival of democratic institutions. One of the principal mechanisms linking the politicization of ethnic divisions with the destabilization of democracy is the so-called “outbidding effect.” According to theories of ethnic outbidding, the politicization of ethnic divisions inevi...

This paper focuses on new democracies in Eastern Europe and addresses two questions about the translation of social cleavages into political oppositions. The first question concerns the translation of pre-existing cleavages. In brief, does the evolution of new party systems influence the politicization of social conflicts? The second question concerns the translation of new social cleavages, i....