Amanda Driscoll, Ph.D., the J. Elizabeth Garraway Professor of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies, has received the 2026 C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Section for her book, The Efficacy of Judicial Review: The Rule of Law and the Promise of Independent Courts.
The Pritchett Award is given annually to the best book on law and courts written by a political scientist and published the previous year, making it one of the discipline’s highest honors for judicial scholarship.
Dr. Driscoll co-authored the book with Jay N. Krehbiel, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, and Michael J. Nelson, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and Department Head at Pennsylvania State University.
Published by Cambridge University Press, the book examines when constitutional courts can effectively safeguard the rule of law. Drawing on survey experiments conducted in the United States, Germany, Hungary, and Poland, the authors demonstrate that judicial independence is critical to judicial efficacy. The findings show that courts viewed by the public as independent can empower citizens to hold executive leaders accountable for violating constitutional limits, while weaker courts are less able to generate public consequences for such actions.
“We discovered that public support for the rule of law is remarkably steadfast—even during periods of intense political conflict and democratic strain. That was not what we expected,” Dr. Driscoll said. “More encouraging still, our research suggests that independent courts continue to matter because citizens are willing to hold political leaders accountable when they undermine judicial authority.”
Dr. Driscoll’s research explores comparative democratic institutions in modern Latin America, with particular emphasis on courts, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.
To learn more about FSU’s Department of Political Science, visit https://cosspp.fsu.edu/polisci/.