Empirical students of the U.S. courts successfully explain some court decisions through the party of the executive or legislature that appointed the judge. Others (including some judges) find these studies offensive. In taking offense, they miss a crucial implication: appointment politics...

Verifiable proxies for social capital potentially provide an empirically tractable way to identify environments where social norms both constrain behavior and substitute for judicial enforcement. Using regression and factor analysis with Japanese prefecture-level data, I explore several aspects...

Because of the risk of political interference, in countries with managed courts jurists who share ruling-party preferences disproportionately self-select into judicial careers. During political turmoil, such jurists will find judicial careers less attractive. Orthodox potential jurists will...

Although the executive branch appoints Japanese Supreme Court justices as it does in the United States, a personnel office under the control of the Supreme Court rotates lower court Japanese judges through a variety of posts. This creates the possibility that politicians might indirectly use the...