Replication Data for: Backlash and Judicial Restraint: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights

How does backlash from consolidated democracies affect the behavior of liberal international institutions? We argue that liberal international institutions have incentives to appease their democratic critics. Liberal institutions rely on democratic support for their continued effectiveness and can accommodate democratic critics at a lower legitimacy cost than non-democratic challengers. We examine this theory in the context of the European Court of Human Rights using a new dataset of rulings until 2019 and a coding of government positions during multiple reform conferences. Combining matching and a difference-in-differences design, we find strong evidence that the Court exercises restraint towards consolidated democracies that have criticized the Court in multilateral reform conferences by rendering fewer violation judgments against these states. We find some evidence that governments have also recently appointed more deferential judges. The findings suggest that backlash can affect liberal international institutions even without membership exit.

巩固型民主国家的反对反弹，会对自由国际制度的运作产生何种影响？本文认为，自由国际制度存在安抚其民主制批评者的动机。自由国际制度的持续有效运行依赖民主国家的支持，且相较于非民主挑战者，其安抚民主制批评者所需付出的合法性成本更低。本文以欧洲人权法院（European Court of Human Rights）为研究场景，使用截至2019年的全新裁判数据集，以及对多轮改革会议中各国政府立场的编码数据，对上述理论展开检验。结合匹配法与双重差分（difference-in-differences）研究设计，本文发现有力证据表明：针对在多边改革会议中批评过欧洲人权法院的巩固型民主国家，该法院会采取克制态度——对这些国家作出的违反公约判决数量更少。本文还发现部分证据显示，近期各国政府任命的法官愈发倾向于顺从该法院的立场。研究结果表明，即便缺乏成员国退出机制，来自巩固型民主国家的反对反弹也能够对自由国际制度产生影响。