Judicial Activism in a Comparative Perspective

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Abstract This study investigates the phenomenon of judicial activism from a comparative perspective by examining the highest constitutional courts in India and Germany: the Supreme Court and the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) respectively. In addition to answering the question of what role these courts play in their countries’ political institutional set-ups, the study explains to what extent they can be classed as powerful. Historical neo-institutionalism forms the study’s theoretical basis, which it deploys in endeavouring to understand the courts’ development and in identifying critical junctures in their histories.