Populism and Judicial Backlash in the United States and Europe
Common criticisms of judicial activism stretch from the somewhat outdated but nonetheless repeatedly re-emerging argument of courts’ “counter-majoritarian difficulty”((Alexander M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics 16 (1962).)) to the prevalence of disagreement in plural societies concerning the substance and scope of human rights.(( Richard Bellamy, “Rights as Democracy”, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, 15: 4, (2012).)) Beyond conceptual attacks, however, it is increasingly common to find politicians across the Atlantic who attack courts for decisions with which they simply disagree. Especially the recent resurgence of right wing populism in the ... continue reading
