Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of Political Science
Research Project:
A global crisis of democracies? Change and continuity in 21st century politics
Instructor:
Armen Hakhverdian
Master Thesis
Testing the effect of independent judiciaries on media freedom
Student:
Elvan Ibicoglu (11261315) Track: International Relations
Date: 24 June 2019
Word Count:
Abstract
NGO’s such as Reporters Without Borders (RWB), Amnesty International and Freedom House fear that governments are using their power to harass journalists and media outlets to silence critical voices. Presidents and prime-ministers can utilize laws to legally restrict criticism and silence opposition media outlets. When they are use legal measures to silence critical media, the role of the judiciary becomes valuable and important. Based on theoretical framework supporting this claim, the hypothesis of this study is as following: Media freedom will significantly increase in countries when there is an independent judiciary that is able to constrain the executive power which. This was tested with a large V-Dem dataset of 179 countries between 1789-2018 using bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. The results show that there is a bivariate relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media
freedom in 2018 and also between 1789-2018. However, when control variables of land area, population, GDP per capita and GDP growth, country and region-fixed effects were introduced into a multivariate analysis the causal relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom disappeared. I conclude that this study has set a base for future research where scholars can delve deeper into the topic by taking other factors into account that might influence media freedom as well, such as populism and democratic waves.
1. Introduction
For many years, media freedom has been under pressure in different parts of the world. Reporters Without Borders (RWB) voices that hatred of journalists has degraded into violence creating an increase in fearful environments to do their work. Here, attacks, threats and insults are part of ‘’occupational hazards’’ for journalists who investigate sensitive topics such as fraud, tax evasion or organized crimes (RWB, 2019). In May 2019 alone, several events occurred that pressured and punished journalists who investigated issues that were salient to the government. For example, RWB reported that journalist Nabil Jassim of Baghdad Today received death threats if he decided to reveal what he called ‘’Iraq’s most important corruption case’’ where he failed to receive police protection (RWB, 2019). In another report, RWB (2019) called for the release of Chinese journalist Ma Xiao who published a series of interviews with political prisoners and as a result has been detained for a month. Finally, RWB (2019) called the French Domestic Intelligence Agency to account for the questioning of eight journalists who worked on sensitive cases such as arms sales of France to Saudi-Arabia during the Yemen war. Besides RWB, Amnesty International is also concerned of journalists being under governmental pressure while doing their work. For example, the human rights organization reveals in a research report that ‘’a number of journalists in Indonesia are currently being tried on criminal charges in a series of defamation cases and are threatened with imprisonment for their professional activities.’’ (Amnesty International, 2015) In addition Senior Director for Research and Analysis of Freedom House Sarah Repucci (2019) has published a research report which concludes that ‘’media freedom has been deteriorating around the world over the past decade.’’ Elected leaders in many democracies have taken clear attempts to silence critical journalists and media outlets. For example, president Trump is known for threatening to sue journalists who write critically about him. In January 2018, he announced that his administration planned to ‘’take a stronger look at the country’s libel laws’’ calling the current ones ‘’a sham and a disgrace.’’ (Wilkie, 2018) Changing such laws can limit journalists in reporting on issues that Trump might consider politically sensitive and damaging to his reputation.
Usually, governments use harsh and clear methods to silence those who expose wrongdoing by officials. An example of this includes case of journalist Ma Xiao in China, but also other countries. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 was an infamous case but not unique in its kind. In Myanmar, two journalists of Reuters were sentenced with seven year imprisonment after investigating the military autocracies against the Rohingya minority. Afterwards, they were pardoned but not discharged (Repucci, 2019). However, silencing critical journalists is not only common in autocratic states anymore but also in democracies. Even in the most influential democracies in the world, elected leaders are attempting to threaten and punishing independent media outlets. In this case, journalists are not being thrown in jail as this occurs in
autocratic states. Instead, Freedom House reports, ‘’the media have fallen prey to a more nuanced efforts to throttle their independence.’’ These nuanced efforts include government-backed methods such as financial pressure, public accusations or questioning of their investigation as has been the case in France.
All of the abovementioned cases indicate that journalists experience serious problems while engaging in legitimate journalistic activities. NGO’s such as RWB, Amnesty International and Freedom House fear that authorities are using their power to harass journalists and media outlets to silence critical voices. They are concerned with negative the impact harassing journalists might have on the state of society and democracy. These concerns lead to the responsibility of political scientists to research why media freedom has been deteriorating around the world. It is possible that political scientists discover certain patterns or process take place that might reveal underlying issues that have been going on. To do this, we first have to address the knowledge that is already known.
When it comes to democracies, a range of scholars (Arzheimer, 2009; Bonikowski, 2016; Hawkins, 2003; Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018; Weyeland, 2013) argue that populist leaders often undermine and damage democratic institutions by denying legitimacy of political opponents, undermining elections and
restricting liberties of those who oppose them such as media outlets. Presidents and prime-ministers can utilize laws to legally restrict criticism and silence opposition media outlets. They can propose or change certain laws or even constitutions that protect media freedom which has been the case with President Trump in the United States. When governments are using nuanced legal measures to silence critical media, the role of the judiciary becomes valuable and important. This will be discussed in a more detailed in the following section. Due to the importance of the judiciary, this study aims to shed light on this by investigating the role of the judiciary in countries in protecting media freedom. Hence, the research question of this study is: What is de effect of independent judiciaries in legally protecting journalists and media outlets government harassment? When discussing media freedom, I refer to the definition of Kellam and Stein (2016: 42-3) who describe media freedom as ‘’an environment in which journalists can report independently of government and with minimal regulation or state intervention.’’ This means that journalists are able to work in an environment where they are able to cover political sensitive issues and be critical of government policies in countries. Also, this includes that there is no direct or indirect government censorship, harassment, arrest and imprisonment of journalists while they are engaging in legitimate journalistic investigation and reporting.
Media freedom will significantly increase in countries when there is an independent judiciary that is able to constrain the executive power.
The results show that there is a bivariate relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom in 2018 and also between 1789-2018. This was still the case when judicial constraints was measured a year earlier than media freedom identifying a causal bivariate relationship between them. However, when control variables of land area, population, GDP per capita and GDP growth, country and region-fixed effects were introduced into a multivariate analysis the causal relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom disappeared.
Although the hypothesis was not confirmed, this study makes the following contribution. It will be an update on the literature of democratic backsliding where I will analyze the most recent available data, events and information on democracies in countries. Also, this research makes an empirical contribution since it is not be a replication but entails a new design to acquire knowledge on certain aspects of democracies by specifically focusing judicial independence on the media freedom aspects of democracy. Regarding societal relevance, the severity of executive leaders repressing media freedom varies between countries, however the aim always similar: preventing the media to check on the executive leaders. Independent media outlets in liberal democracies provide an essential service to society and keep democracy in countries transparent, honest and accountable to citizens. The press is able to address and expose cases of corruption, power abuse and privacy invasion. Leaders who disrupt this process leave citizens unable to access important information regarding activities of the incumbent government. This is an important electoral process that advances democratic consolidation and political liberalization.
The structure of this article proceeds as follows. The first section consists a theoretical framework where I will discuss literature regarding media freedom and independent judiciaries. The second section presents the methodology and data where I will explain in detail which dataset and variables I used to conduct this study. The third section presents the results that were found and the final section provides a conclusion where key features of this article are outlined.
2. Theory
In this section, I will discuss the theoretical framework of independent judiciaries and its influence on media freedom in several parts of the world. I will start with the importance of media freedom in societies and how it has been deteriorating in both autocratic and democratic. Then I will focus on the more subtle measures that governments take to censor media which will be followed by the role of the judiciary in the same context.
2.1 Media freedom
To understand why media freedom is declining, we first need to know the role and abilities of free press and journalists in societies, especially when it comes to their relationship with the government. A growing body of literature has already shown that media freedom is beneficial to the quality of governance where free and independent press enhances accountability and bureaucratic transparency (Adsera, Boix, and Payne, 2003; Egorov, Guriev and Sonin, 2009; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2013; Themudo, 2013; Treisman, 2000). In addition, Kovach & Rosentiel (2001) argue that free news media helps to improve government respect for human rights, because a lack of censorship on media freedom enables media outlets to act as
watchdogs over the government and hold them responsible and responsive. Indeed, free media allows for an effective mechanism for external control on the government and can disclose information on salient issues that it considers politically important. Media outlets have the potential to perform investigations and raise public awareness about these issues that mostly concern events of government corruption or criticism on government statements, activities or its policies. Raising public awareness and holding the government accountable could pose a threat to executive leaders since disclosure of corruption and criticism on their activities can damage their reputation. For this reason, many governments and executive leaders all over the world try to control the flow of information and use their power to silence journalists and censor media outlets in different ways.
2.2 Direct Censorship in Autocracies and Democracies
Usually, harassing journalists and media outlets is common in autocratic regimes where measures taken to repress media are rather clear and relentless. Stier (2015) has identified that the most illiberal media is found in communist ideocracies where the government has a monopoly on communication to indoctrinate its own ideology. For example, Amnesty International disclosed in a research report that all media in North-Korea is controlled by the state and freedom of expression is heavily restricted. Holding dissenting information is perceived as opposing the state and can be punished with two years ‘’training labour’’ (nodong danryundae) or five years ‘’correction labour’’ (kyohwaso). Other subtypes of autocracies such as monarchic autocracies have similar repressive measures against journalists and media outlets who
dissent from the general discourse and report on sensitive issues. For example, Amnesty International (2017) reported in September 2017 that there has been a wave of arrests in Saudi-Arabia where several activists, writers, journalists and academics have been detained. The authorities conclude that this has taken place to protect national unity and security. Accusations of ‘’infringing national unity’’ is
considered a terrorist crime in Saudi-Arabia and can eventually be punished with the death penalty by the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh. In Iran, there has been a severe crackdown on journalists in October 2018 for social network posts where journalist Saba Azarpeyk has been detained for accusing Labour Minister Mohammad Shariatmadar of corruption and favoritism. She posted her story on social networks causing an online stir before the vote of confidence in Parliament on 27 October (RWB, 2018). In such autocratic regime types, repression of media freedom is quite clear and direct; they can be publicly detained, put in camps or even executed. However, torture and murder of journalists does not only occur in autocratic regimes. Today, journalists can be victim of these circumstances in democracies as well. In democracies, media freedom is protected by the constitution, but that does not mean journalists are always safe. For example, they can be murdered by criminals due to reporting on corruption
(Bjørnskov and Freytag, 2016). A case of this is the murder of Brazilian journalist José Cândido Amorim Pinto in a drive-by shooting in Brazil 2005 who reported extensively on corruption events (RWB, 2005). In Mexico, violence against journalists has increased significantly over the past 12 years where at least 72 journalists were murdered and 13 disappeared since 2000, mainly due to reporting on drug cartels (Edmonds-Poli, 2013)
In general, this is how we tend to think of media freedom being under attack: at the hands of dictators in autocratic regimes where opposition journalists are being arbitrarily detained, tortured or executed. In the case of democracies, we tend to think of media freedom declining when journalists are being murdered at the hand of criminals and drug cartels who use illegal measures that have no place in democracies in the first place. However, there are also more subtle methods that can be taken to silence journalists and media outlets. These methods are more prevalent in democracies where the instead of criminals the government takes less obvious measures so their repression does not stand out and attract attention. This is almost required since democracies should advocate and protect media freedom in their countries. The question is then what kind of measures democratic governments are taking to silence journalists and media outlets?
2.3 Subtle Censorship in Democracies
Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018: 22) argue that elected populist leaders in democracies often meet the criteria of authoritarian behavior that lead to democratic backsliding including the deterioration of media freedom. This process occurs through small and legal measures approved by parliaments and supreme
courts in countries in order to avoid criticism, investigation or accountability (77). Elected leaders have to put effort into ensuring that key players such as opposition politicians and media outlets are sidelined. They are thwarted though legal measures and eventually become unable to criticism and challenge the incumbent government and president or prime-minister. This way, leaders can hide their suppression behind a veneer of legality and do not have to exile or execute journalists as is the case in autocratic regimes. For instance, opposition media and businessmen who finance the opposition can be sidelined by accusing them of breaking the law (83). These laws can be defamation laws, communication laws or even tax laws. The result is often that opposition media outlets will be harassed, censored or become partisan and in favor of the government. The most obvious way for governments to control the flow of
information and sideline media outlets is through censorship.
For example, there are critical newspapers in Turkey that continue operating, however they are increasingly being faced with government pressure and are consistently targeted with prosecution.. Importantly, media outlets are being censored through legal measures that are taken by the incumbent president Erdoğan and the AKP which holds the majority of seats in the Turkish parliament. For example, Freedom House (2019) reports that more than 150 media outlets were shut down after the coup d'etat attempt in 2016 and 25 journalists were sentenced with jail for having alleged links with the Gülen Movement that the government accuses for the coup (Freedom House, 2019). Another example of
censorship through legal measures includes an interesting conflict between the AKP and the largest media conglomerate: Doğan Media. According to Yesil (2014: 165) and Akser & Baybars-Hawks (2012: 310-311), Doğan Media’s newspapers (including Hürriyet, Hürriyet and Radikal) have been covering fraudulent activities of the government including whether the government misused donations to German charity organization and NGO Deniz Feneri to fund AKP activities in Germany in 2008. Afterwards, the AKP and then prime-minister Erdoğan accused Doğan Media of fraud, reporting biased and false news and calling supporters to boycott Doğan Media’s newspapers. In turn, Doğan Media became increasingly critical of government policies, but also tried to ease tensions by firing prominent columnists. However, this did not settle the conflict. In 2009, the Turkish Ministry of Finance charged the conglomerate $3.5 billion in tax fines which was the equal to the net worth of Doğan Media. The AKP claimed that the fine was due to tax irregularities, however it is more likely the case that the government party intended to censor a powerful media conglomerate owning critical newspapers. Due to the enormous tax fine, Doğan Media cracked under pressure and was forced to fire critical journalists from newspapers Hürriyet and daily Radikal and sell Milliyet to pro-government businessmen. A third example includes a case reported by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) where Minister of Finance and Erdogan’s son in law Berat Albayrak filed defamation suits against journalist Pelin Ünker for damaging
his reputation in 2018. With regard to the Paradise Papers investigation, she revealed details in newspaper Cumhuriyet that politicians and multinationals had hidden money in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes, including Albayrak-managed Çalık Holding (Fitzgibbon, 2018). Besides Turkey, Freedom House (2019) has reported that president Nicolás Maduro asserted a state communications infrastructure (bolstered by a large legal foundation) that is used to display a pro-government program. Many critical newspapers have shut down, transferred to digital news outlets or changed ownership under financial pressure, and afterwards grew more favorable coverage to the Maduro administration. Critical and independent journalists in Venezuela operate in a very restrictive and regulatory environment where they risk arrest and physical violence when engaging with their work. In addition, the National
Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) instructed internet service providers to not allow investigative journalism website (Armando.info) reporting about Alex Saab; a Colombian businessman responsible for importing staple foods for the government food distribution program in Venezuela. In addition, the Russian government passed several legislations restricting freedom of press; laws that ban VPN’s to prevent circumventing government censorship, exclude foreign ownership of Russian
telecommunications services and a government strategy to consolidate all information infrastructure under state control by 2030 (Freedom House, 2019). In Hungary, the constitution protects media freedom however extensive and new media legislation enacted by the Fidesz party created political media
regulations that undermine the constitution. The national and local media are controlled by
pro-government outlets and are used to discredit the opposition. While independent opposition media outlet exists, they are increasingly closed, ceasing their operations after or being taken over by government loyalists. Hungary’s largest independent daily Népszabadság was closed in 2016 and in 2018 media outlets owned by Simicska, including Magyar Nemzet, Heti Válasz, and the broadcast station Lánchíd Rádió ceased their operations and HírTV channel was taken over by government (Freedom House, 2019).
In the abovementioned cases, all governments used legal measures to sideline and censor opposition media outlets. In Turkey’s case, these have been lawsuits files against journalists who revealed fraudulent behavior of AKP organizations and politicians. In Venezuela, Russia and Hungary, legal measures taken by the executive branch of government are used to display a pro-government agenda and censor critical journalists and media outlets to avoid criticism and accountability in their countries. It is here where judiciaries becomes salient and important in democracies; they are the ones that can offer legal protection from the government and authoritarian leaders who want to censor them. Before going into further detail about this process, we first need to address the prominent role of the judiciary in democracies.
An independent judiciary plays a key role in guaranteeing a fair and stable democracy. In this article, an independent judiciary refers to a state institution separate from other political actors where judges can adjudicate free from controls imposed or forcefully intimidated by individuals or institutions in- or outside of the government (Becker, 1970; Fiss, 1993). Larkings (1996) argues that the judiciary is responsible for several democratic aspects such as interpretation of the constitution, protecting rights of minorities and other procedures associated with the liberal government. In addition O’Connor (2008) and Linz and Stepan (1996) argue that courts are responsible for the rule of law which serves as the last step in establishing a consolidated democracy. Finally, Gibler and Randazzo (2011) emphasize that the judiciary is able to ensure that political leaders cannot act without disregard for statutory and
constitutional laws. In democracies, the judiciary should provide a mild, consultative check on executive and legislative power and hence has the ability to overrule laws and decrees that suppress media freedom (Sweet, 2000). Hence, if judiciaries are independent and unpartisan institutions, they have the power and ability to protect journalists and media outlets from government harassment and censorship efforts. There are two ways for the judiciary to do this: (1) the judiciary can directly protect journalists from law suits that the government filed against with already existing laws protecting media freedom and freedom of expression and (2) the judiciary can indirectly protect journalists by opposing government laws that infringe media freedom.
In the former case, judges can protect journalists from harassment and censorship by holding fair trials and discharge journalists of ‘’committing crimes’’ while they were doing legitimate investigation. In democracies, courts are rather careful when judging lawsuits against journalist and media outlets since it can infringe on the right to media freedom and freedom of expression. Bollinger (1976: 1) argues that in the U.S. print media receives complete constitutional protection from government attempts to ‘’impose affirmative controls such as access regulation’’ for the past half century. The Supreme Court insists on the historical right to be free from government scrutiny when it comes to the interpretation of the First
Amendment.1’’ An infamous court case in the U.S. is New York Times (NYT) vs. United States (1971) where then President Richard Nixon filed a lawsuit against NYT for publishing classified Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the NYT claiming that the First Amendment protected the newspaper to publish the papers in contrast to the government’s need to maintain secrecy of information. 2 A more recent example is when online media outlet BuzzFeed had a legal victory in 2018 when a judge in the United States ruled that BuzzFeed has legal protection for its disclosure of dossiers about President
1 The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees certain freedoms under which freedom of press (Barron,
1967).
Trump having ties with Russia (Gerstein, 2018). When it comes to Europe, Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) protects the right to freedom of expression and media. Moreover, the Council of Europe (CE) acknowledges that free, independent and pluralistic media based on freedom of information and expression are pillars of democracy in Europe. The CE promotes ‘’an enabling environment for freedom of expression, underpinned by legal guarantees for independence and diversity of media and safety of journalists and other media actors.‘’34 Here, the similar judicial protection that can be found in the U.S is also present in Europe where the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has assigned the role to the press of being a watchdog over democratic society which has resulted in the increased level of protection to the ‘’freedom of journalistic expression’’ (Flauss, 2009: 826-827). An example of this is the case Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) vs United Kingdom (2018). The BIJ was concerned with the effect of mass surveillance by the UK government on whistleblowers who were seeking to reveal government wrongdoing and the difficulty of guaranteeing a source’s anonymity. Eventually, the BIJ and journalist Alice Ross (who was investigating UK drone programs at the time) brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court found that the UK was violating Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights due to the “potential chilling effect that any perceived interference with the confidentiality of journalists’ communications and, in particular, their sources might have on the freedom of the press.” The UK is now required to rewrite the law ‘’ as to how the security and intelligence service can look at and use journalists confidential communications and material.’’ (Oldroyd, 2018). A third example is the case of journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül of newspaper Cumhuriyet in Turkey. The journalists were arrested and kept in pre-trial detention after revealing secret government information regarding delivery of weapons to IS rebels in Syria in May 2016. Eventually, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that the pre-trial detention was a violation of their right to freedom of expression (Baele, 2016). These examples illustrate that journalists can be directly
protected by courts (as has been the case in the U.S. and Turkey) and also indirectly (as has been the case in the UK) by forcing the government to alter existing laws that infringe media freedom.
However, we need to remember that the judiciary is able to provide such protections for journalists and media outlets if it is independent from other political actors and can adjudicate free from controls imposed by individuals or institutions in- or outside of the government. However, there are several cases of judicial independency. Judiciaries can be independent from corruption and bribery (Buscaglia and Dakolias, 1999) and government (Salzberger, 1993). In this article, the focus lies on independency from the
3 Media. Freedom of Expression (2019). The Council of Europe.
government. In democracies, the independency of judiciaries comes rather natural but it does provoke the question: what happens when the judiciary is not independent from the government? What can happens to journalists and media outlets if the judiciary is in the hands of those who are filing law suits to censor them in the first place? Before we can answer these questions, we need to analyze how judiciaries can fall into the hands of the government when they are supposed to be an independent institution in democracies.
Levistky and Ziblatt (2018: 77-78) argue that the executive branch of government can ‘’capture referees’’ meaning that it can obtain power over the judicial system, law enforcement bodies and regulatory
agencies that are supposed to serve as neutral arbiters. This provides great opportunities such as replacing former members of these institutions with loyalists and selectively enforcing law where they target opposition politicians, business and media outlets. Importantly, this also happens under the veneer of legality. For example, in April 2017 the Turkish government held a referendum that Mechkova, Lührmann and Lindberg (2017: 165) describe as an executive coup by president Erdoğan. The
referendum proposed amendments to the constitution that changed the political system in Turkey and was voted in favor by a small majority of 51.4% (Esen & Gümüşçü: 304). The amendments provided Erdoğan new powers such as serving as both head of state and government and appointing cabinet of ministers and a number of members of two important judicial bodies: The Constitutional Court and Members of the Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK). In this case, Erdoğan has implemented changes to institutions that could be a ‘’danger’’ to his power and position (Ekim and Kirişci, 2017; Solaker and Butler, 2017; Srivastava, 2017). This also illustrates the importance on independent judiciaries. If members of judicial institutions are being replaced with loyalists, it very likely that loyalists will not protect critical journalists that have written ‘’defamatory’’ pieces in media outlets. For example, after Erdoğan ‘’captured’’ the judicial system in Turkey, loyal judges that he appoints might retain from protecting journalists such as Can Dündar and Erdem Gül who published government secrecies.
Based on the theoretical framework above, I hypothesize that the more independent the judiciary is within countries, the more media freedom there will be. The aim is to answer the research question of this article as broad as possible and can be generalized on a global scale. For that reason, I will make use of most recent the V-Dem dataset with indicators for independent judiciaries and media freedom. This will be discussed in more detail in the following section.
3. Data and Methodology
In this section, I will describe my dependent, independent and control variables in full detail where descriptive statistics are also presented. I will empirically test the hypothesis of this article using time-series cross-sectional data from the Varieties of Democracies (V-Dem) database (Version 9 Country-Year Full + Others) that spans between 1789 to 2018 across 179 countries worldwide. The V-Dem database includes an index which consists of five indicators that measures to which extent the executive power is constrained by the judiciary which will be the independent variable in this study. There was no such index available for media freedom and thus this was created by myself consisting of six indicators from the V-Dem database that will be the dependent variable.
3.1 Dependent variable
For the dependent variable, I used the index ‘Media freedom’ that was described in the 2018 V-Dem Working Paperby Hegre, Bernhard and Teorell (2018). This index consisted of six indicators that measured several aspects of media freedom. The first indicator is to which extent the government puts effort into censoring print and broadcast and media which was measured between 1900-2018. This includes direct and indirect forms of censorship that were politically motivated, for example withdrawal of financial support, influence over broadcast frequencies, printing facilities, distribution networks, selected distribution of advertising, prohibitive tariffs and bribery. The second indicator is harassment of journalists which includes examples such as journalists being threatened with libel, arrestment,
imprisonment, beatings and murder by government or non-governmental actors between 1789-2018. The third and fourth indicators are to which extent the print and broadcast media outlets are able to criticize the government (a) and represent a wide range of political perspectives (b) between 1789-2018. The fourth and fifth indicators are to which extent there is self-censorship among journalists when they report on issues that are politically sensitive to the government (a) and how much media bias there is against opposition parties or candidates between 1789-2018 (V-Dem Codebook, 2019). Unfortunately, the ‘Media freedom’ index was not available in the V-Dem data base. For that reason, I replicated this index by calculating the mean score of all six indicators combined for media freedom. The indicators were based on a Likert-scale ranging 0-3 or 0-4 where the lowest value refers to the least media freedom and the highest value the most media freedom.
3.2 Independent variable
For my independent variable, I used the ‘Judicial constraints on the executive index’ that was available in the V-Dem data base. This index was formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor
analysis model tapping into five indicators from the V-Dem database. The first indicator measured whether the executive respects the constitution of the country. V-Dem focused specifically if members of the executive (the head of state, the head of government and cabinet ministers) respect the constitution. The second indicator focused on whether the executive complies with important decisions of the high court in a country with which it disagrees. The third and fourth indicators measured judicial independence and measured how often the (a) high court and (b) lower courts make decisions that merely reflect
government wishes regardless of their sincere view of the legal record. These indicators were also based on a Likert-scale ranging 0-4 where the lowest value refers to the least judicial constraints and the highest value the most judicial constraints. The descriptive statistics of both media freedom and judicial
constrains on the executive are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of the Media Freedom and Judicial Constrains on the Executive
Variable Mean SD Min. Max. N
Media freedom -0.168 1.462 -3.045 3.163 18.289 Judicial Constrains on the Executive 0.496 0.288 0.003 0.991 24.931 3.3 Control variables
In order to best isolate effects of independent judiciaries on media freedom, I will introduce various control variables from the literature on democratization. Gibler and Randazzo (2011: 669-703) analyzed the effects of independent judiciaries on the likelihood of democratic backsliding and argue that ‘’high levels of state wealth (usually measured by GDP) provide strong societal protections against reversions from democracy.’’ Although it has been questioned whether wealth has an impact on consolidating democracies (Boix, 2002; Boix and Stokes, 2003), there seems to be no doubt about wealth preventing reversion of democracy. In addition, Gasiorowski (1995) presented empirical support that economic recessions (which can be measured with GDP growth) leads to democratic breakdown. Since democratic
breakdown also includes the erosion of media freedom (Bermeo, 2016), I will use GDP as a control variable in this research as well. Specifically, I will make use of the variables GDP per capita and GDP growth rate available in the 2019 V-Dem database. Moreover, I will include control variables of population and size of countries in square kilometers to rule out demographic effects. Since some countries have an extreme large population and land area compared to others (e.g. China vs. Belgium), population and land area have been logged. To see descriptive statistics of these control variables, see Table 2.
Finally, I will control on region as well to check the effect of continental regions on media e to exclude any regional effects that might take place. To do this I will make use of a politico-geographic variable available in the 2019 V-Dem database which includes the following regions: (1) Eastern-Europe and Central-Asia, (2) Latin-America and the Caribbean, (3) the Middle-East and North-Africa (including Israel and Turkey), Sub-Saharan Africa, (5) Western-Europe and North-America (including Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand) and (6) Asia and Pacific.
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics of the Control Variables
Variable Mean SD Min. Max. N
Land area 12.040 2.118 3.522 16.911 10.603 GDP growth 0.022 0.080 -0.629 1.736 13.802 GDP per capita 8.241 1.118 4.898 12.302 14.144 Population 8.096 1.819 2.885 14.049 19.394
Note. Land area and population are logged variables.
3.4 Factor analysis
I performed two principle component analyses (PCA) with the indicators for the independent and
dependent variable to confirm that there are no other underlying factors (or variables) that can be reduced from them. PCA reduces multiple observed indicators into fewer components that summarize their
variance by forming linear combination (Field, 2013: 668). I confirmed that there was a strong linear relationship between the indicators in both variables. Also, the indicators for the independent and dependent variables account for large variation of the collected data. For the independent variable (judicial constraints on the executive), there was one factor identified underlying the five indicators (Eigenvalue exceeding 1) which accounted for 75.45% of the variance. The dependent variable had similar results; one factor was identified underlying the six indicators (Eigenvalue exceeding 1) which accounted for 86.39% of the variance in the variable.
3.4 Cronbach Alpha
Prior to reporting the main analyses, I calculated the Cronbach's alpha coefficient to confirm the internal consistency and reliability of the indexes of both the independent (α = .91) and dependent variable (α = .97). A Cronbach's alpha coefficient for Likert-type scales above .90 is considered to have excellent internal consistency and reliability (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994; George and Mallery, 2003: 231)
3.5 Methodology
The methodology consists of bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. The hypothesis will be tested several model specifications where each model becomes more complex with the aim of building a strong and robust model. I will the model specifications in more detail in the following section. First, I will start with a bivariate analysis between the judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom.
Afterwards, I will employ several multivariate analyses where each model becomes more complex by including control variables, country-fixed effects, region-fixed effects and a clustered option for standard errors within countries. All statistical analyses have been conducted in STATA/SE 15.0.
Prior to the analyses, I commanded in STATA that the V-Dem dataset in this research was panel data, specifically time series and cross section data. This means that it is combined of cross-sectional and time series data where the same observations have been measured at one point over a longer time period (Brady & Johnston, 2008). In this case, indicators for judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom have been measured at one point every year between 1789-2018.
I constructed an empirical model with five indicators for independent and impartial judiciaries and six indicators for media freedom and analyzed the data with a multiple regression analysis (MRA) including control variables such as GDP.
4. Results and Discussion
In this section, I will discuss the results and interpretations of the statistical analyses. I will start with bivariate analyses followed by multivariate analyses to test the effect of independent judiciaries on media freedom.
4.1 Bivariate Analyses
The first bivariate analysis consists of a regression model between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom in the most recent year in 179 countries worldwide. The results show that there is a positive significant relationship (R2 = .78, p = .000) between the between judicial constraints and media
freedom (see Figure 1). Interestingly, there are a few small outliers, such as Laos (LAO) and Haiti (HTI). In Laos, it appears that there are relatively high constraints on the executive (0.42 on a scale from 0 to 1) compared to the presence of media freedom in the country which has a rather low score (-2.50 on a scale from -4 to 4). The opposite seems to be the case in Haiti where there are higher levels of media freedom (1.6) and lower levels of judicial constraints (0.2). Since this is a rather large sample of countries, it is possible that there will be certain exceptions to the rule. However, in general it is seems that there is a strong linear relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom; the more judicial constraints on the executive there is, the more media freedom there seems to be in 2018. Hence, it appears that this model confirms the hypothesis of this article. However, this is only one snapshot of one point in time whereas the aim of this article is to generalize the theory as broad as possible. Specifically, the aim is to analyze what the effects on judicial constrains on the executive on media freedom are between a much larger time period. For that reason, I conducted the same second bivariate analysis between only this time between 1789-2018.
Figure 1. The Effect of Judicial Constraints on the Executive on Media Freedom in 179 countries between in 2018.
The second bivariate analysis includes a model analyzes the relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom for every country over 229 years between 1789-2018 creating 18.088 observations. Hence, the unit of analysis here is not the country, but the country year. The results of the second analysis show that there is a positive significant relationship where judicial constraints accounted for 54% in variance in media freedom (R2= .54, p = .000). In Figure 2, we can see that there is a clear linear
relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom over a larger time period? Generally, the more independent the judiciaries are over country years, the more media freedom there is. However, there are some limitations to this bivariate analyses. Both of them show that there is a linear relation between judicial constraints and media freedom in a cross-sectional context: the variables are correlated with each other at the same point in time. At first sight, there seems to be a relationship between the two, but is it a causal relationship? The current bivariate regression analyses are insufficient to conclude causality. There
needs to be a certain time period in between the variables to measure the effects of independent
judiciaries on media freedom for us to conclude an actual causal relationship. Is it the case that when the independency of judiciaries changes, a year later media freedom changes as well? To answer these questions, we need to have a certain time period between independent judiciaries and media freedom to see if change in independent judiciaries causes change in media freedom as well.
Figure 2. The Effect of Judicial Constraints on the Executive on Media Freedom in 179 countries between 1789-2018 (N = 18.088).
In the third bivariate analysis, the independent variable has been lagged with one year to measure its effect on the dependent variable. This way, we can see whether changes in independent judiciaries also causes change in media freedom a year later. Also, the dependent variable has been coded twice so we
can measure the relationship between the dependent variable and a lagged version of itself over a one year period to see how the lagged dependent variable affects its future level. The results confirm that there is a positive significant relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom (p = .011). See Table 3 Model 1 for more details. The regression equation shows that the beta coefficient for media freedom is 0.211 meaning that for every unit that judicial constraints on the executive increases, media freedom will increase with 0.211. However, this effect is only present the year after which means that it is a short-term effect. See Table 3 Model 1 for more details. The results also show a significant positive relationship (b = .961, p = .000) between the lagged version of media freedom and media freedom with an abnormally high R2 in the model showing that media freedom is a very persistent or
sticky process. Hence, changes that do occur in media freedom persist over a longer time period and the long-term effect will most likely be larger. In sum, there seems to be a significant causal relationship, however there possible other variables that can have influence as well. To make a strong case for this relationship, we need to rule out other variables and effects. For this reason, I will perform multivariate analyses with more complicated models and techniques.
4.2 Multivariate Analyses
From here, I am going to build a robust regression model to
The aim here is to see whether we can establish a causal relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom between 1789-2018 including other variables and effects that can influence this causal relationship. For that reason, I will develop five models where I solidify each model by adding control variables and certain effects. Table 3 provides an overview of the results. Here, it is already clear that the coefficients of determination (R2 ) for all models are abnormally high. This is due to the fact that
all models include a lagged dependent variable, this will be explained in further detail in model 1.
In model 2, I performed the multivariate regression analysis conform model 1 where I added lagged control variables of land area, population, GDP per capita and GDP growth to exclude other influences that can affect the causal relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom. Since the control variables are lagged by one year, we can analyze whether change in the control variables also causes change in media freedom the year after. Interestingly, after introducing control variables into the model the significant positive relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom disappears (b = .017, p = .348). See Table I in the Appendix for more details. Moreover, the control variables seem to have certain effects in this model: population and GDP per capita have a positive significant relationship with media freedom. This indicates that economic wealth and large population number of countries have also certain effect on media freedom.
In model 3, I performed the exact same regression analysis conform model 2 where I also introduced country-fixed effects to analyze the effect of judicial constraints on the executive on media freedom within countries instead of between them. This way, we can make a stronger case for causality if this is the case between judicial constraints and media freedom in this model. Specifically, the question then is: if independent judiciaries change within countries, does media freedom change the year after as well? To answer this question, I introduced country-fixed effects to the model where dummy variables are created for every country which eliminates the variance between the countries. The results show no significant relationship between judicial constraints on the executive on media freedom within countries (p = .081), see Table 3 Model 3 for more details. Although there is no significant relationship, the beta coefficient has a negative value which indicates that if judicial constraints on the executive within countries increase, media freedom will likely decrease. This is an intriguing result as this is contrary to the hypothesis of this article. Also, the control variables seem to slightly change when country-fixed effects are included: land area now has a significant negative relationship with media freedom (b = -.062, p = .048) and the positive significant relationship between GDP per capita and media freedom disappears. The results for GDP growth and population remain the same. This indicates that the size of countries, economic wealth and population effect the causal relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom in this model.
In model 4, I performed the exact same regression analysis conform model 3 where I additionally
introduced region-fixed effects to the model to eliminate regional influences that might affect the causal a possible relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom in this model. For this reason, I will analyze the causal relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom within geographical locations. These locations include (1) Eastern-Europe and Central Asia, (2) Latin-America and the Caribbean, (3) Middle-East and Northern Africa including Turkey and Israel, (4) Sub-Saharan Africa and (5) Western-Europe and North-America including Cyprus, Australia and New-Zealand and (6) Asia and Pacific. This variable was added to the regression analysis as a dummy variable since this is a categorical level. The reference category was (1) Eastern-Europe and Central Asia. The results remain the same; there is no causal relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom in this model (p = .081). Details are listed in Table 3 Model 4. Also, the results of the control variables remained the same conform the previous model.
In the last model, I performed the same regression model conform model 4 adding a cluster option to indicate that the observations are clustered within countries. Hence, this final model includes control variables, country-fixed effects, region fixed effects and is adjusted for clustered standard errors since there are multiple observations per country. In this final model, the results still remain the same conform the previous model, see Table 3 model 5 for more details. The only difference is that control variable population has a significant positive relationship with media freedom (b = .116. p = .000) whereas previous control variables that had significant relationships with media freedom disappeared.
Table 3
Multivariate Models with the effect of judicial constraints on media freedom between 1789-2018, including the unstandardized regression coefficients (b) standard errors (SE) in parentheses
Note: * p < .05. Due to collinearity, Norway, Seychelles, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Hungary were omitted in model 3,4 and 5. All models include a lagged dependent variable.
Media Freedom (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Judicial constraints on the executive (t-1) 0.211* (0.008) 0.017 (0.018) -0.072 (0.041) -0.072 (0.041) -0.072 (0.066) Control variables x x x x Country-fixed effects x x x Region-fixed effects x x Clustered x p value .011 .348 .081 .081 .282 R2 0.98 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 N 17.888 6415 6415 6415 6415
5. Conclusion
The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the judiciary in protecting media freedom. I focused on the research question on what the effect is of independent judiciaries in legally protecting journalists and media outlets from government harassment. Based on the theoretical framework, the hypothesis was that media freedom will increase when there is an independent judiciary that is able to constrain the executive power. The results have shown that there is a significant bivariate relationship between judicial constraints on the executive and media freedom in 2018, but also between 1789-2018. This was still the case when judicial constraints was lagged with one year identifying a causal bivariate relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom. However, when control variables of land area, population, GDP per capita and GDP growth were introduced in a multivariate analysis the causal relationship between judicial constraints and media freedom disappeared. This result remained the same when the causal relationship was also controlled for country and region-fixed effects and when there was indicated that the observations were clustered within countries. This contradicts the hypothesis of this article and shows that having independent judiciaries within countries will not guarantee more media freedom. Due to the large dataset, this conclusion can be generalized to almost every country in the world as of 1789. The results of this study also add to the existing theory by showing that simply having
independent judiciaries in countries is generally not sufficient to establish high levels of media freedom. It sets a base for future research where scholars can delve deeper into the topic and see if other institutions or judicial factors are stronger predictors of media freedom. Of course, there were also some limitations in this study.
The analyses were performed on a global scale over a very large time period between 1789-2018. This can be an advantage because results that are found can be generalized as broad as possible. The
disadvantage is that such a broad dataset is apart from many forms of context. The only context that was taken into account in this study was an institutional context or more specifically the judicial system in countries. As mentioned, Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) argue that elected populist leaders in democracies often meet the criteria of authoritarian behavior that lead to the deterioration of democratic backsliding. Weyland (2013: 21) argues that ‘’populism will always stand in tension with democracy’’ where the logic of personalism leads populists to widen their discretion and power. Hence, they see any institution (such as media) outside of their control as an obstacle to be bypassed. It is possible that declining media freedom is more driven by governments with a populist president or prime-minister. It was also apparent from the theocratical framework that harassing journalists and media outlets was mainly the case in countries with populist leaders such as U.S. and Donald Trump, Turkey and Recep Erdoğan, Hungary and Victor Órban and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Further literature suggests that this happens in other
countries with populist leaders such as Raffeal Correa in Ecuador (Conaghan and De la Torre, 2008), Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (Kodrich, 2008) and Evo Morales in Bolivia (Lupien, 2013). I suggest that future studies that research the declining of media freedom in the world to analyze the effects of populist characteristics of president and prime-ministers. Taking this into account will provide future studies with more depth and context which might yield different results.
Another process that can be taken into account in future research are the waves of democratization. Hungtinton (1991) describes three democratic waves over the course of history where democracies are uprising and declining in the world. The first wave was between 1828-1926 were 29 democracies were seen in the world which decreased to 12 during the Second World War. The second wave was between 1945-1971with 35 democracies where the number dropped to 30 in the mid-70’s. The third wave began in 1974 and ended in 2008 where important democratic transitions took place in Latin-America, Eastern-Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. In general, democracy is a persistent system that will most likely not alter in short-term years. However, the democratic waves have shown that they can be subject to change given certain events. For example, Eastern-Europe became more democratic only after the collapse of the Sovjet-Union. There is a possibility that media freedom (as part of a stable democracy) will be affected by the democratic waves. For example, transitioning towards a democracy could provide many advantages to media freedom in countries. For that reason, I suggest that for future research on declining media freedom to take democratic waves into account as well. This way, we can continue researching a topic that has high value in democratic societies and raises concerns when that value is lost.
Appendix
Table I.
The unstandardized regression coefficients (b) standard errors (SE) and p values of the independent and control variables of Model 2
Media Freedom Variables b SE p value Independent Variable Judicial constraints on the executive (t-1) Control Variables (t-1) 0.017 0.018 0.348 Land area -0.004 0.002 0.056 Population 0.009 0.002 0.001** GDP per capita 0.010 0.003 0.004** GDP growth -0.088 0.038 0.021*
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