No society can function without judicial institutions. At a minimum, conflict must be regulated and the criminal law enforced. Ironically, though, modern political science has tended to ignore the role of courts in advanced industrial societies, so much so that even basic information has often been unavailable. This book covers three important bases. First, it provides, for the first time, up-to-date material about the court systems - their structures, their personnel, their jurisdictions - of the major democratic nations. Second, it places the courts in their political context, eschewing...