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4 - Politicians, Their Interests, and the Judicial Tug-of-War

from II - Political Actors and the Incentive to Politicize

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

Adam Bonica
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Maya Sen
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

We pivot in this part to discussing the other key player in the judicial tug of war – political elites. Chapter 4 begins by considering how the interests of political actors and those of the bar clash over the captured judiciary. Specifically, over time, political actors and lawyers have drifted apart ideologically, resulting in tension. This mismatch, we argue, sets the stage for contemporary fights over the politicization of the judiciary, over activist judges, and over the meritocracy of the judiciary – the judicial tug of war. We also note in this chapter that an increased interjection of “politics” into the selection of judges, although perhaps unappealing to many Americans, need not necessarily be undesirable; after all, having a judiciary that represents a greater variety of political and ideological interests (including conservative ones), and not just the bar’s, might be the most desirable from a normative perspective.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Judicial Tug of War
How Lawyers, Politicians, and Ideological Incentives Shape the American Judiciary
, pp. 105 - 140
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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