Do judges respond to institutional and strategic incentives or do they strictly follow dominant professional role conceptions? This article weighs in by exploring whether an ideational shift toward judicial empowerment and independence can germinate from institutional reforms. Ukraine's 2014 Euromaidan revolution and the comprehensive judicial reform adopted in its wake provide a test of the competing theoretical accounts. A judicial lustration law sacked all incumbent court chairs, who had been appointed by the executive, and gave Ukrainian judges the right to elect new chairs via secret ballot. I analyze this radical step toward judicial self‐government using an original data set with individual‐ and court‐level data. The key finding is that less than a fifth of Ukrainian judges embraced their newly granted agency and elected a new chair for their court, whereas the overwhelming majority followed dominant professional norms of deference and reelected the sacked court chairs. This finding holds for all rungs of the judicial hierarchy and for all regions of Ukraine. Even protégés of ousted president Yanukovych won the secret ballot vote by their peers more often than they lost it. Beyond Ukraine, these results suggest that empowering individual judges in the highly hierarchical structure of a civil law judiciary is unlikely to lead to a judicial behavior shift, at least in the short run.

中文翻译：

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豹可以改变斑点吗？乌克兰2014年法院主席选举期间的战略行为与专业角色构想

法官是对机构和战略激励措施做出回应，还是严格遵循占主导地位的专业角色概念？本文通过探讨向司法授权和独立的观念转变是否可以从制度改革中发芽来进行权衡。乌克兰2014年的Euromaidan革命和随之而来的全面司法改革，为竞争的理论解释提供了考验。一部司法照会法解雇了由行政长官任命的所有现任法院主席，并赋予乌克兰法官以无记名投票方式选举新主席的权利。我使用具有个人和法院级别数据的原始数据集来分析迈向司法自治的这一重大步骤。关键的发现是，不到五分之一的乌克兰法官接受他们的新发放机构，并当选为他们的法院新椅子，而绝大多数遵循尊重的优势专业规范，并蝉联落马法院椅子。这一发现适用于司法体系的所有梯级以及乌克兰的所有地区。甚至连被罢免的总统亚努科维奇（Yanukovych）的拥护者也赢得了同行们的秘密投票，而失败的机会更多。除乌克兰外，这些结果表明，至少在短期内，赋予民法司法体系高度结构化的个人法官权力不会导致司法行为的转变。这一发现适用于司法体系的所有梯级以及乌克兰的所有地区。甚至连被罢免的总统亚努科维奇（Yanukovych）的拥护者也赢得了同行们的秘密投票，而失败的机会更多。除乌克兰以外，这些结果表明，至少在短期内，赋予民法司法体系高度结构化的个人法官权力不会导致司法行为的转变。这一发现适用于司法体系的所有梯级以及乌克兰的所有地区。甚至连被罢免的总统亚努科维奇（Yanukovych）的拥护者也赢得了同行们的秘密投票，而失败的机会更多。除乌克兰外，这些结果表明，至少在短期内，赋予民法司法体系高度结构化的个人法官权力不会导致司法行为的转变。