AUTHORITARIANISM AND THE FUNCTIONS OF COURTS - A TIME-SERIES ANALYSISOF THE PHILIPPINE SUPREME-COURT, 1961-1987

Focusing on the independent and powerful pre-martial law Philippine Su preme Court, we investigate the impact of the establishment and breakd own of authoritarianism on the court's performance of the functions of conflict resolution, social control, and administration. We develop h ypotheses concerning and models of the impacts of the onset, consolida tion, and breakdown of martial law authoritarianism under Ferdinand Ma rcos on that court's handling of the three functions. Using Box-Jenkin s time series analysis methods, we assess the impacts of the onset, co nsolidation, and breakdown of Marcos's authoritarianism on the Supreme Court's functional performance. In our analysis, authoritarianism had no impact on the Court's performance of the conflict resolution funct ion; authoritarianism's onset increased and its breakdown decreased th e Court's performance of the routine administrative function; and auth oritarianism's onset decreased but its consolidation increased the Cou rt's performance of the social control function.