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Judicial Elections, Acceptance, and Legitimacy with Judges as Representatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2024

Benjamin Woodson Open the ORCID record for Benjamin Woodson [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin Woodson*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA
*
Email: woodsonb@umkc.edu
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Abstract

This article proposes that elections with substantial amounts of campaign activity change the substance of a state supreme court’s legitimacy from one derived from the court’s legalistic nature to one derived through representation. Using a national survey, it shows that because of this change the perceived legitimacy of courts with robust elections does not induce acceptance of their decisions. Only nonrepresentative courts with the legalistic form of legitimacy can convert their institutional legitimacy into decisional acceptance. This means that even highly legitimate courts with robust elections are ineffective at inducing acceptance. This hinders the ability of those courts to build public support for their decisions, which is essential for the effective functioning of the judiciary. Additional analyses show this effect is not caused by the politicization associated with campaigning but rather through the representation provided by elections.

Keywords

judicial electionsjudicial selectionsurvey experimentlegitimacypopular constitutionalism
Type
Original Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the State Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association

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