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What motivates judges as decision makers? Political scientist Lawrence Baum offers a new perspective on this crucial question, a perspective based on judges' interest in the approval of audiences important to them. The conventional scholarly wisdom holds that judges on higher courts seek only to make good law, good policy, or both. In these theories, judges are influenced by other people only in limited ways, in consequence of their legal and policy goals. In contrast, Baum argues that the influence of judges' audiences is pervasive. This influence derives from judges' interest in popularity an.

▪ Abstract  The Supreme Court's role in American politics is a product of its interventions in public policy making and the impact of those interventions on government and society. The Court's frequent and substantial interventions during the past half century are especially striking, and their extent and their beneficiaries cannot be explained fully by major theories of the Court's behavior. The Court's rulings often receive negative responses from other policy makers, but even more noteworthy is the degree to which judges and administrators carry out the Court's policies and legislators leave those policies standing and the Court unscathed. Scholars who emphasize the Court's limited ability to change society make a strong case, but it is not clear to what extent the Court's limitations are unique to the judiciary and to what extent they reflect the limited powers of government in general.