Strategic Retirement in Comparative Perspective: Supreme Court Justices in Presidential Regimes

2017/01/01 by Aníbal Pérez‐Liñán, Ignacio Arana Araya · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Judicial and Constitutional Studies #Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems #Legal and Constitutional Studies

paper · doi:10.1086/692962

openalex publication_date 2017/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/16

Abstract

Abstract Students of judicial behavior debate whether justices time their retirement to allow for the nomination of like-minded judges. We formalize the assumptions of strategic retirement theory and derive precise hypotheses about the conditions that moderate the effect of partisan incentives on judicial retirements. The empirical implications are tested with evidence for Supreme Court members under democracies and dictatorships in six presidential regimes between 1900 and 2004. The theory of strategic retirement finds limited support in the United States and elsewhere. We conclude that researchers should emphasize “sincere” motivations for retirement, progressive political ambitions, and—crucial in weakly institutionalized legal systems—political pressures.

Citations

• The Institutional Turn in Comparative Authoritarianism

Discussions

• This surprises many, but there is mixed evidence at best that justices typically retire strategically (you can see a discussion of this mixed evidence in Pérez-Liñán and Araya 2017, doi.org/10.1086/69 [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]

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