The Judicial Tug of War: How Lawyers, Politicians, and Ideological Incentives Shape the American Judiciary

by Adam Bonica, Maya Sen

Why have conservatives decried 'activist judges'? And why have liberals - and America's powerful legal establishment - emphasized qualifications and experience over ideology? This transformative text tackles these questions with a new framework for thinking about the nation's courts, 'the judicial tug of war', which not only explains current political clashes over America's courts, but also powerfully predicts the composition of courts moving forward. As the text demonstrates through novel quantitative analyses, a greater ideological rift between politicians and legal elites leads politicians to adopt measures that put ideology and politics front and center - for example, judicial elections. On the other hand, ideological closeness between politicians and the legal establishment leads legal elites to have significant influence on the selection of judges. Ultimately, the judicial tug of war makes one point for good or bad, politics are critical to how judges are selected and whose interests they ultimately represent.

Genres: Law

334 pages, Hardcover

Published February 4, 2021

Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sign of a good book is its ability to get you to rethink an idea you have long held. As a lawyer who finds legal training valuable, I had a generally positive view of the predominance of lawyers in government. While I haven't completely changed my mind, this book opened my eyes to some of the downsides of lawyers' privileged role in American government. For example, it undermines regulation of the profession and increases the cost of legal representation. The book's main argument is straightforward and its evidence is convincing. Still, the book is not perfect. It compares the ideology of lawyers and politicians, but leaves out the public. More specifically, it seems to assume that elected officials are representative/reflective of the general public, but ignores some of the ways, like gerrymandering and voter suppression, our electoral system may skew the reflection. Their normative argument would be more convincing if these things were considered. Overall, though, it's an important addition to the literature on judicial selection and law and courts more generally.