ON THE STRUGGLE FOR JUDICIAL SUPREMACY

Given that democratization is an ongoing, dynamic process, what explai ns the emergence and maintenance of some types of political institutio ns and the decline of others? The answer, we argue, lies not in the in tentional design of long-run constitutional principles but rather in t he short-run strategic choices of political actors. While many would a gree with this vision as applied to legislative or executive instituti ons, we claim that it is equally applicable to courts. After laying ou t our argument-a theory of institutional emergence and maintenance-in some detail, we test it by applying game theory to a critical moment i n American history: the defining sequence of events for American presi dential-court relations that played out between President Thomas Jeffe rson and Chief Justice John Marshall in the early 1800s. Our analysis allows us to assess factors fundamental to most explanations of the Je fferson-Marshall conflict: the political and institutional preferences of the actors (especially Jefferson's preferences over judicial revie w) and the larger political environment in which the conflict took pla ce. It also provides important insights into how we might study other interinstitutional interactions, be they of historical moment or of fu ture concern.