The Double-Edge Sword of Judicial Corporatism. Mexico’s Judiciary in Times of Democratic Stress

With Professor Julio Antonio Ríos from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Comments by Professor Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez from Texas A&M University and visiting at Sciences Po Law School.

Under authoritarianism, a ‘perverse’ type of bureaucratic autonomy can develop by which specialized bureaucracies like the judiciary trade subordination to the executive for internal administrative discretion. This exchange engenders a cadre of institutional insiders with strong corporate identities and a vested interest in retaining control over appointments. With democratization and the introduction of professionalization reforms, insider elites can leverage their networks and strategic organizational positions to co-opt implementation and maintain influence within the new formal framework limiting the effects of merit-based reforms. However, an unexpected result of this type of autonomy and its persistence after reforms is a strong esprit de corps in the judiciary, a strong corporatist identity that can become a source of strength for the judiciary. Specifically, the backing of the corporation and the esprit de corps gives bureaucratic insiders an important source of strength and will to defend judicial independence in contexts of democratic erosion. This general idea is illustrated in the case of Mexico, where the ‘perverse’ type of judicial autonomy was forged under the authoritarian hegemomic-party regime (1917-2000), and the ‘bright side’ of judicial corporatism has arguably emerged under the current period of democratic erosion (2018-2025), that includes an ongoing reform to popularly elect all judges in the country.