The role of Constitutional Courts in the establishment and maintenance of democratic systems of government

What role do courts play in the establishment and maintenance of constituti onal democracies? To address this question, we elaborate a model that draws on existing substantive literature and on theories that assume strategic b ehavior on the part of judges, executives, and legislatures. This model, in turn, leads to several behavioral predictions about the interactions among the relevant political actors. Although those predictions could be assesse d in many distinct contexts, we focus on Russia. In particular, we provide a demonstration of how the model helps make sense of the behavior of the Co nstitutional Court (Konstitucjonnyj sud) in light of the difficult politica l situation it confronted. We conclude with some thoughts on the broader im plications of our theory for the study of courts throughout Eastern Europe and how it may well illuminate constitutional politics in other parts of th e world.