Kings are born; judges are selected. Without the genetic clarity of royal lineage those on the bench must acquire and justify their claims to officialdom through other means. G. Alan Tarr's book reminds us that the question of how to ensure that fair, qualified individuals ascend to the bench is as old as the nation itself—and that it has been answered many different ways across our federal system and throughout our history. Tarr does not merely look back. He frames his historical analysis and discussion of state selection methods squarely in the context of current debates between “Bashers” and “Defenders” of judicial independence (p. 2). He summarizes a wealth of social science evidence on various aspects of judicial elections and offers insights as to the efficacy of different tactics for improving methods of selection. He also takes a stand, which should prove refreshing to academics accustomed to hedging and equivocation, in terms of the best practical strategy for balancing the competing values of judicial accountability and independence at the heart of concerns about judges' policymaking.

Tarr contributes to current debates by showing that judicial selection methods in the states are creatures of politics and context, rather than efficient social engineering. The account of selection techniques in each state from colonial times to the present is truly impressive. He details changes that occurred in selection rules, citing legislative evidence and the historical circumstances that gave rise to each initiative. He demonstrates that decisions about judicial selection and tenure are driven by what is perceived as the primary threat to judicial competence. The precise nature of that threat, and thus the debate over independence, has evolved in complex ways throughout our history.

In the late eighteenth century, many state legislatures saw bias grounded in the desire to please the electorate as the primary threat to judicial impartiality. The solution: put judicial selection in the hands of state executive or legislative officials via appointment. By the mid-1800s, however, it became clear that the patronage system practiced by state officials was the most dangerous source of partisan bias. Thus, “experiments” that started in states like Georgia, Indiana, and Mississippi, calling for the election of judges to make them less beholden to party officials, blossomed into a national movement after 1846 when New York changed its state constitution to provide for the election of all judges (p. 45).

During the Progressive era, calls for judicial accountability were taken to an extreme with proposals for popular recall of judges and even judicial decisions. Tarr argues that this led to a backlash among legal professionals increasingly concerned about popular intrusions on judicial independence, but that the nature of the debate shifted. Rather than citing public influence on decision making as a threat to judicial competence per se, legalists like William Howard Taft seemed to get more leverage questioning the public's competence and incentive to effectively monitor our third branch of government (p. 58). This resulted in a return to appointments in some states during the early twentieth century, and more recently the implementation of “hybrid” merit-selection systems modeled after the one implemented in Missouri in 1940.

Today “Defenders” of judicial independence continue to characterize judicial elections and an increasingly “politicized judiciary” as the primary threat to judicial independence. “Bashers” point to social science research debunking concerns about the inadequacy of judicial elections and the incompetence of voters. Tarr himself details much of this research in Chapter 5, and seems to agree that elections can serve as an effective means of selection. But he also makes it clear that, for him at least, the answer to achieving the right balance between accountability and independence lies not in how judges are selected but in other reform measures involving judicial tenure. He implies that given our knowledge of the ways in which judicial elections operate, we should spend less time worrying about how judges achieve office and more on thinking about how they hold and retain their positions in order to minimize the negative influence of money and special interests in the judicial branch.

Besides providing a historical perspective as a means to contextualize current debates, Tarr attempts to provide theoretical clarity by offering definitions for and distinctions between different types of judicial independence and accountability. He also tries to categorize different mechanisms of accountability in terms of what judges are being held responsible for and the primary means of enforcement for each mechanism. The scheme is intuitively appealing, although concepts that are treated as theoretically distinct actually tend to bleed into one another. “Accountability to law,” for instance, is not just a self-enforcing ideal that is entirely dependent on the good faith of individual judges. It is collectively enforced, through what the author characterizes as the intrabranch mechanism of appellate review, as well as the shared understanding of legal concepts that evolves over time. To be fair, he acknowledges that these concepts overlap a bit, but he arguably underestimates the confining influence of law on decisional behavior. To his credit, there is an especially interesting discussion of “Judicial Independence in the Era of Legal Realism” (at p. 117) where Tarr grapples with the implications of current understandings of judicial decision making for notions of independence and accountability. This discussion is brief, but it raises important questions that political scientists should be thinking about more carefully.

One critique of the book is that perhaps it is too ambitious. The argument is a bit disjointed because the historical analyses, discussion of judicial elections, and suggestions for reform are segregated in distinct chapters. Some readers would surely prefer a more integrated approach. Also, the one-size-fits-all solution to balancing independence and accountability that Tarr proffers in the final chapter feels somewhat out of line with the nuanced history he so carefully details. Arguably, as much attention should be paid to distinctions among the states in looking for solutions to balancing these values as he pays in outlining the tension in the first place.

Overall, Without Fear or Favor is an interesting book that makes important contributions to our understanding of the current debate about judicial independence. In the classroom, it will provide a useful tool to illustrate how institutions arise from political contexts and how our federal structure fosters both innovation and homogeneity as states strive to find new solutions to similar problems and adapt those that have proven effective elsewhere. Judicial selection and tenure provide an excellent lens to view such dynamics; Tarr's work detailing and contextualizing state practices throughout our history is both effective and worthwhile.