Replication Data for: "Political Competition and Judicial Independence: How Courts Fill the Void When Legislatures Are Ineffective"

The data and code herein replicate the main and supplementary analyses for the paper, "Political Competition and Judicial Independence: How Courts Fill the Void When Legislatures Are Ineffective." What effect does political competition have in generating de facto judicial independence? We argue that competition in a legislature can drive increases in de facto judicial independence. Our game-theoretic model reveals that increased competition for seats impedes legislators' ability to enact their platforms, regardless of government turnover probability; and increased legislative fractionalization also makes court intervention more likely. Utilizing a sample of democratic states, empirical evidence suggests when a country's legislature is increasingly fractionalized among parties or has increasing seat turnover, we observe increases in de facto independence. This research provides new perspectives on the link between independence and competition.