Assessing Judicial Elections: Effects Upon the Electorate of High and Low Articulation Systems

Abstract

AN UNAVOIDABLE tension between two important aims of government is built into modern state judiciaries.1 Judges, as major governmental actors, perform two distinct functions namely, that of resolving individual disputes between litigants and, on increasingly frequent occasion, that of establishing directions for public policy. Clearly, to resolve conflicts between contending litigants jurists must remain independent of the interests of those parties. Fairness and due process demand no less. However, on those frequent occasions when judicial decisions affect much of the citizenry, judges must be held accountable for those decisions. Democracy demands no less. Consequently, while judges must be independent of public pressures to settle disputes fairly, they must also be subject to public accountability for decisions that carry broad public import.2 This inevitable tension between judicial independence and public accountability is encountered directly in the consideration of judicial recruitment (Wasby 1978: 155; Nejelski 1975). It is precisely through the process of recruitment that expectations regarding accountability and independence are exchanged between judicial recruiters and would-be recruits. Our concern in this study is to determine the impact of variations in judicial selection circumstances on the attitudes and behavior of one of the major types of recruitment actors in the process the judicial voter. How do different recruitment systems influence the behavior of the electorate, and how do they affect the attitudes of thejudicial voter toward the accountability-independence dilemma?

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