Book excerpt: Much of the scholarly literature on democratization and the rule of law focuses on formal institutional design as the primary arbiter of democratic legal change. This study contends that the rule of law also depends upon an informal judicial culture that enshrines the principles of independence and accountability and compels judicial actors to take the formal rules seriously. To better understand how such a democratic judicial culture takes root, this dissertation analyzes the informal attitudes of judges in two post communist states---Romania and the Czech Republic---examining why, and in what circumstances, judges form attitudes conducive to the rule of law. The study employs both quantitative and qualitative methods, analyzing an original data set of nearly 300 judicial survey responses, as well as more than 100 face-to-face interviews with Romanian and Czech judges. At the aggregate level, the findings offer evidence of a marked cultural disparity between the two cases, as Romanian judges report significantly weaker perceptions of independence and significantly more tolerant attitudes toward official corruption. At the individual level, both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that the underlying causes of these attitudinal disparities lay beyond the purview of formal institutional design. Specifically, informal judicial attitudes are significantly and consistently linked to respondents' trust in key self-governing judicial bodies, such as autonomous judicial councils and professional unions, which play an integral role in protecting judicial independence and ensuring judicial accountability. Further, the findings suggest a variety of other experiential and ideological variables that can also influence the informal autonomy and integrity of judges. The results of the study not only contribute to the scholarly debate about how the rule of law develops in transitioning states, they also have important implications for policymakers concerned with promoting the rule of law in Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the democratizing world.