The Edward S. Corwin Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public law.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado’s “The Judicial Bulwark: Courts and the Populist Erosion of Democracy” is an ambitious examination of the conditions under which courts can promote or prevent the process of autocratization by populist executives. The central argument is that populist executives who are able to co-opt or neutralize apex courts early on possess an advantage in undermining other components of liberal democracy. In contrast, when apex courts maintain their autonomy, they can foster resistance to democratic erosion by building coalitions with others, including both state and non-state actors. The judges on such courts are pivotal players in those coalitions because they possess the legal authority to establish that an executive is compromising liberal democracy.
Garcia-Holgado carefully develops their theoretical argument and then evaluates it with the use of rigorous analyses of Ecuador under the presidency of Rafael Correa (as a case study of democratic erosion) and of Argentina under the presidency of Cristina Kirchner (as a case study of democratic resilience). The thorough attention to issues of generalizability and scope conditions and rich detail regarding the case studies contribute to making “The Judicial Bulwark” an engrossing and thought-provoking read about a topic of great contemporary relevance.
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Delaware. His research and teaching focus on comparative judicial politics, political regimes, and qualitative methods. In particular, he studies (1) innovative ways to conceptualize contemporary autocratization, (2) the strategies judges, political parties, and civil society actors employ to counter executive aggrandizement, and (3) case-study methodology and qualitative data-gathering techniques. Benjamin earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame. Since 2023, his work has appeared in American Behavioral Scientist, Comparative Politics, Journal of Law and Courts, Global Constitutionalism, Law & Policy, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Wendy Martinek (Chair) of Binghamton University, SUNY, Dr. Alyx Mark of Wesleyan University, and Dr. Rachel Stern of University of California, Berkeley