Join USAID's Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Bureau on November 14 from 10-11AM EST for a presentation and discussion about judicial backsliding with Lydia Tiede, Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. The presentation explores recent research about why and how elected leaders seek to undermine courts. The presentation will define judicial backsliding and present empirical findings concerning its determinants as well as examples of this phenomenon. The presentation will also present preliminary findings concerning how courts may rebound after they have been attacked.
For more information, see Professor Tiede's recent articles about the legislature's role in judicial backsliding and rebuilding rule of law in an era of backsliding.
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Lydia Brashear Tiede is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. Her current research focuses on studying high courts comparatively, predominantly in Latin America and Eastern Europe, as well as comparative research on the rule of law and democratic backsliding in developing countries. Her book, Judicial Vetoes: Decision-Making on Mixed Selection Constitutional Courts was published by Cambridge University Press (2022). Tiede served as a rule of law liaison in Skopje in the mid-1990s for the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative and worked on several projects for the OSCE concerning criminal law reforms in this country. In 2023, she provided commentary to the Chilean Sub-commission of Experts in the Senate concerning reforms to the constitutional court contemplated in the most recent draft constitution.
