The Guardian
A cohesive court with strong external allies confronts a fragmented regime — asserting itself to defend the established constitutional order against transformative challenges.
BOOK PROJECT
Manuscript under review at Cambridge University Press
Constitutional courts are institutions forged for hard times — designed to navigate upheaval and settle the disputes ordinary politics cannot. But what happens when the regime itself splinters? When political authority fragments, realigns, or consolidates under contestation, courts face a challenge beyond deciding cases: whether their decisions will carry any weight at all.
Courts are never fully autonomous. They are embedded within political regimes, reliant on dominant coalitions for authority, jurisdiction, and survival — yet they cannot operate as courts unless they sustain an appearance of autonomy. This tension between embeddedness and independence is the ordinary condition of judicial authority, and moments of regime crisis bring it into sharpest relief.
The book traces the Turkish Constitutional Court across six decades of regime crises — single-party rule, democratic openings, military coups, the rise of political Islam, and authoritarian consolidation — treating Turkey not as a single national case but as a comparative site across political episodes. From this longitudinal record it develops a relational theory of judicial roles in crisis: courts shift among four distinct postures as configurations of regime cohesion, judicial cohesion, and support structures change.
Drawing on archival records, judicial rulings, and elite interviews, the book speaks directly to global debates on democratic backsliding — from Poland and Hungary to Israel, Mexico, and the United States — showing that courts' capacity to maneuver rests on the fragile and shifting foundations of the regimes that sustain them.
A TYPOLOGY OF JUDICIAL ROLES IN CRISIS
A cohesive court with strong external allies confronts a fragmented regime — asserting itself to defend the established constitutional order against transformative challenges.
When the ruling coalition fractures and no actor can impose a settlement, the court absorbs constitutional conflict, brokering compromise to keep disputes within institutional channels.
Aligned with an emerging hegemonic coalition, the court legitimizes foundational reforms and dismantles remnants of the old order — an architect of constitutional transformation.
Under consolidated authoritarian power, with support networks gone, the court trades autonomy for survival — preserving the symbolic shell of judicial review that may outlast the regime.