Why do constitutional courts promote their decisions in the media? In this chapter, I describe how courts might construct their power by influencing information within a public enforcement model of constitutional review. This requires thinking about how case promotion affects the logic of existing models of constitutional review in which information is exogenously determined. The chapter is divided into three sections. I begin by describing the underlying public enforcement mechanism as it has emerged in the theoretical literature. I will identify problems that derive from such a mechanism and ask how judicial public relations might address them. In the second section, I develop two straightforward game theory models of judicial–government interaction, one of which allows the court to influence information while the other does not. I discuss the intuition behind the central results and identify observable implications, which I will test in subsequent chapters. In the final section, I return to the political challenges judges face within a public enforcement mechanism when they lack control over information and consider the extent to which public relations can solve these problems.

A PUBLIC ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM

Given the judiciary's lack of enforcement powers, it seems clear enough that we should not treat judicial decisions as unconditionally binding, at least on coordinate branches of government. Still, it would strain empiricism beyond recognition to imagine that courts never control the outcomes to sensitive policy conflicts – that authorities can disregard their legal obligations always or even more often than not.