2015, Vol. 13 No. 1, 200-218 doi: 10. 1093/icon/mov003

3.1. Judicialization during political turbulence
Although political culture across the world varies and it predetermines considerably 
those forms that the power structures take in individual countries and regions, the 
pattern of relationship between the judiciary and the political leadership in a country 
is apparently of a universal nature. This pattern was accurately described by Robert 
Dahl in a seminal article reflecting on the US Supreme Court:
Except for short-lived transitional periods when the old alliance is disintegrating and the new 
one is struggling to take control of political institutions, the Supreme Court is inevitably a part 
of the dominant national alliance. As an element in the political leadership of the dominant 
alliance, the Court of course supports the major policies of the alliance. By itself, the Court is 
almost powerless to affect the course of national policy.
26
26
Robert A. Dahl, 
Decision-making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy-maker
, 6 
J. P
ub
. l.
279, 279 (1957).
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Judicialization of politics: The post-Soviet way
209
In the preceding sections, we saw that post-Soviet high courts are part of the domi-
nant political alliance in their countries, in the most prosaic sense of what the alliance 
of politicians and the courts implies. We also saw what the courts can expect if they 
try not to be part of the dominant alliance and why the courts have no alternative 
other than to play the politicians’ game. In such an environment, judicial defiance 
and meaningful judicial review are possible only when the incumbent alliance faces a 
realistic challenge during what Dahl calls “transitional periods.”
As evidenced by a number of the world’s non-democracies, where judicial indepen-
dence and political activism are not the usual practice, from Pakistan and Egypt to 
Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, judicial independence, as well as activism, is rising propor-
tionately to the rise in the level of political competition in the country. Based on an 
assessment of judicial behavior during times of political turbulence, the behavior of
post-Soviet courts in situations of relatively tense competitiveness is predicted to be 
strategic and the decisions are predicted to be flexible: courts are likely to endorse the 
expected winner in the political competition, but strive to be cooperative with the other