Replication data for: Selecting Selection Systems

Why do societies choose particular institutions of judicial selection and retention? Why do they formally alter those choices? We attempt to address these questions, first, by assessing what we can only call the standard story of judicial selection systems. On this explanation, the initial choice of institutions (and alterations in that choice) comes about through changes in the tide of history, that is, of societies \"responding to popular ideas at different historical periods\" (Glick and Vines 1973, 40). Finding this story conceptually thin and empirically wanting, we turn to a different explanation. On this account, the creation of and changes in the institutions used to select and retain justices serving on (constitutional) courts of last resort must be analyzed as a bargaining process among relevant political actors, with their decisions reflecting their relative influence, preferences, and beliefs at the moment when the new institution is introduced-along with (and critically so) their level of uncertainty about future political circumstances. Among the interesting results our account yields is the following: As uncertainty increases, the probability of adopting (or changing to) institutions that lower the opportunity costs of justices (the political and other costs justices may incur when they act sincerely) also increases.

为何各国社会会选择特定的司法遴选与留任制度？又为何会对这些制度进行正式变更？我们首先尝试解答这两个问题，先评析我们姑且称之为司法遴选制度的标准叙事。根据该解释，制度的初始选择（以及后续变更）源于历史潮流的变迁，即社会“在不同历史时期回应民众的观念”（Glick与Vines，1973，第40页）。我们发现该叙事不仅概念单薄，且在实证层面存在不足，因此转向另一套解释框架。依此框架，旨在遴选与留任（宪法）终审法院法官的制度及其变革，须被视为相关政治行为体间的博弈过程，其决策反映了新制度推出之际各方的相对影响力、偏好与信念，以及（至关重要的一点）他们对未来政治环境的不确定程度。我们的分析得出的一项有趣结论为：随着不确定性上升，采纳（或变更为）可降低法官机会成本（即法官真诚履职时可能承担的政治及其他成本）的制度的概率也会随之提升。