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Independent judiciaries serve as important stopgaps against democratic reversals and can help facilitate peaceful transitions of power essential to democratic survival. An independent judiciary is an important institution that legitimates democracy among citizens. What, then, explains legitimacy of an independent judiciary itself? Past scholarship argues citizens lose faith in an independent judiciary when the judiciary is corrupt or when it fails to deliver procedural fairness in legal matters. I argue that citizens living under conditions of high terror threat lose confidence in independent judiciaries even when the judiciary is honest and fair. Terror threats lead citizens to enable the state leader to provide for their security and defeat the source of terrorism. These have important implications for inter-branch relations between the executive branch and the judicial branch. As a result, citizens living under terror threats lose confidence in independent judiciaries that provide due process for suspected terrorists. I test my argument with a mixed effects models that incorporate the Global Terrorism Database and two waves of European Values Survey. The analyses demonstrate the negative effects of terror threats on judicial confidence when interacting terror threats with measures of judicial independence. My findings have important implications for the study of democratic confidence and the liberty-security dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will address the enduring paradox of balancing liberty and order in the pursuit of justice faced by constitutional democratic republics. The emphasis of the paper will examine privacy and national security from an historic view to present day. The major question addressed will be, how does government balance civil liberties and the obligation to maintain national security? The topics will include: President Lincoln's executive actions during the Civil War, the creation and development of the National Security Agency (NSA) by the Truman Administration in 1952, the "Church Committee" investigation in 1975, the creation and development of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 and the FISA Court, the U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001, satellite surveillance, and data mining techniques and telecoms. The power of the executive branch, the role of Congress, and relevant U.S. Supreme Court and state Supreme Court decisions will also be examined. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers frequently make sweeping generalizations about the positive relationship between the democracy agenda and U.S. national security. These generalizations are buttressed by important assumptions about the effects the spread of democracy has on national security priorities. This study examines the degree to which political science research to date substantiates these assumptions. A content analysis of each official White House National Security Strategy from 1986-2001 reveals four primary assumptions: the spread of democracy decreases interstate conflict and increases stability, human rights, and economic development. A review of the literature finds that several of these assumptions are only justified by mature democracies that have passed through the gray zone of transition to democratic consolidation. In contrast, those democracies that occupy the intermediate or gray zone actually pose a threat to U.S. national security. It is consequently recommended that the democracy agenda prioritize democratic consolidation of the gray zone above all else. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of violent conflict permeate countless aspects of a society and are not limited to the political and economic institutions of a state. I examine the effect of militarized conflict on the populations of states by evaluating the relationship between war and public health, taking into account relevant political and economic factors, including democracy and wealth. I argue that interstate and intrastate conflict negatively influence the health achievement of states and, therefore, the human security of their populations. I assess this relationship by analyzing data on summary measures of public health in all states between 1999 and 2001. My analysis suggests that the negative effect of war on health is closely linked to the levels of income, trade, and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]