Ideology beyond partisanship: The behavior of judges on freedom of information cases in Chile

Based on an original database on votes in non-unanimous decisions (n = 502) in an independent administrative tribunal resolving Freedom of Information (FOI) cases between 2009 and 2017 in Chile, this research tests whether partisanship and ideology explain judges' decisions on administrative information disclosure. We specify a logistic model with pairs cluster bootstrapped t-statistics to account for votes nested in judges and calculate correcting standard errors. The study indicates that when appointing FOI judges close to their parties, politicians cannot count with responsive same party judges to rule in their favor when resolving FOI disputes. Nonetheless, ideology is a strong predictor of judges' decisions when resolving FOI disputes related to privacy and commercial secrets. In doing so, the study enhances our understanding of the behavior of administrative judges working in agencies in charge of controlling the government and sheds light on the role of ideology on adjudication in FOI disputes -an area of law barely explored empirically.