This book is for scholars interested in the comparative study of judicial review. It develops a theoretical framework for understanding how this institution shapes societal understandings of the law/politics relation. Its findings cast light on the conditions under which judicial review drives a sustainable commitment to constitutionally limited government.

Theunis Roux is Professor of Law at University of New South Wales, Sydney. He was the founding director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law and is a former Secretary General of the International Association of Constitutional Law. He is the author of The Politics of Principle (Cambridge, 2013) and co-editor, with Rosalind Dixon, of a recent anthology of papers assessing the triumphs and disappointments of post-apartheid South African constitutionalism.

1. Preliminaries; 2. A typographical theory of JR-regime change; 3. Australian democratic legalism: constant cultural cause or path-dependent trajectory?; 4. From democratic legalism to instrumentalism: India's constitutional cultural transformation; 5. The post-colonial adaptation of authoritarian legalism in Zimbabwe; 6. Testing the typological theory; 7. Findings and implications.