ORIGINAL ARTICLE Courts and authoritarian populism in Asia: Reflections from Indonesia and the Philippines Björn Dressel 1 | Cristina Regina Bonoan 2 1 Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia 2 College of Law, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines Correspondence Björn Dressel, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, J.G. Crawford Building No. 132, 132 Lennox Crossing, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. Email: bjoern.dressel@anu.edu.au Funding information Discovery Project; Australian Research Council; Judicial Loyalties and Resistance in Southeast Asia, Grant/Award Number: DP 230102553 Abstract Authoritarian populism has been making a comeback in Asia, as illustrated in Southeast Asia’s most impor- tant presidential regimes: the Philippines and Indonesia. In the Philippines, President Duterte (2016– 2022) has shown unprecedented illiberal transgressions. Meanwhile in Indonesia, Joko Widodo’s increasingly assertive presidency (2014–) has renewed concerns about “democratic backsliding” in what to date has been one of the region’s most vibrant democracies. In both instances, courts have been largely muted in responding to these developments, raising concerns about their ability to counter democratic backsliding. A distinct political agenda targeting the courts through partisan control over parliament to pursue illiberal goals; undue presidential influence over judicial appointments reinforced by informal loyalty dynamics; and traditionally weak public support for the courts versus high executive popularity are critical drivers behind this trend. Nevertheless, the inherent fragility of competitive-clientelist regimes common to the region also offers courts the opportunity to recover and resist such efforts, especially in electoral democracies. 1 | INTRODUCTION The global rise of authoritarian populism has sparked renewed attention to the role that courts play in either countering or facilitating this phenomenon. As institutions tasked with safeguarding fundamental rights and upholding the rule of law, courts naturally become targets for authoritarian-populist actors driven by both ideological and pragmatic considerations (Friedman, 2019; Prendergast, 2019). DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12240 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2024 The Authors. Law & Policy published by University of Denver and Wiley Periodicals LLC. Law & Policy. 2024;1–21. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/lapo 1