Understanding the Judiciary from the Inside. The Legal Culture of Judges in Mexico1

Abstract

Judges' legal culture is a factor that has been regarded as an important explanation of judicial behavior. As a concept, however, it has been difficult to operationalize and measure and, therefore, frequently dismissed. In this piece, I bridge three different literatures, tackling the lack of theorization in judicial politics' ideational accounts when dealing with the concept of judges' legal culture. Then, I use an original survey with federal judges in intermediate courts in Mexico and conduct a factor analysis to identify judges' legal culture and determine to what extent judges hold a positivist or a constitutionalist legal culture.