High-End Demand: The Legal Profession as a Source of Judicial Selection Reform in Urban China

Most studies of comparative judicial politics suggest that judicial autonomy emerges from democratic competition, but despite its authoritarian political system, China has introduced reforms that increase merit-based competition, transparency, and modest professional autonomy in local courts. Variat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLaw & social inquiry Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 969 - 1000
Main Author Kinkel, Jonathan J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2015
Wiley Periodicals
Cambridge University Press
Subjects
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism (Political ideology)
Autonomy
Courts
Employment
Judges
Judicial process
Legal profession
Legal professions
Legal reform
Legal system
Politics
Reform
Selection procedures
Urban areas
Chengdu China
Shenzhen China
Shanghai China
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Summary:Most studies of comparative judicial politics suggest that judicial autonomy emerges from democratic competition, but despite its authoritarian political system, China has introduced reforms that increase merit-based competition, transparency, and modest professional autonomy in local courts. Variations in judicial selection procedures across urban China reflect differences in local markets for professional legal services: when mid-ranking judges can easily find lucrative local employment as lawyers, court leaders strategically reform appointment and promotion mechanisms to retain these young, but experienced, judges. These findings are based on nearly fifteen months of in-country fieldwork, conducted between 2012 and 2014, including forty-nine interviews with judges across three different cities: Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Employing the subnational comparative method, this article not only builds theory regarding the legal profession's role in authoritarian states, but also offers new empirical detail regarding the selection, performance evaluation, and behavior of judges in urban China.
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Jonathan J. Kinkel
earned his PhD from the Department of Government at the University of Texas–Austin in 2015, where he primarily studied comparative politics and public law. This article benefited from helpful feedback from many people, including Dan Brinks, Sida Liu, Ethan Michelson, Bill Hurst, Christian Sorace, Yuhua Wang, Nico Howson, Mary Gallagher, and the participants at paper workshops at the University of Texas and at the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. The fieldwork upon which this article is based was supported by a Boren Fellowship from the US Department of Education, a MacDonald Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Texas–Austin Government Department, and a Ward Fellowship from the University of Texas–Austin College of Liberal Arts. Please direct any questions or comments for the author to
.
jjkinkel@gmail.com
ISSN:0897-6546
1747-4469
1545-696X
DOI:10.1111/lsi.12170