Martin Shapiro: An Appreciation

Over the past half century no judicial politics scholar has been more respected or influential than Martin Shapiro. Yet it is hard to identify a school of thought one could call “Shapiroism.” Rather than offer convenient methodologies or grand theories, Shapiro provides rich empirical studies that show us how to think about the relationship between law and courts on the one hand and politics and governing on the other. Three key themes run through Shapiro’s impressive oevre. First, rather than study courts in isolation, political scientists should view them as “one government agency among many,” and seek to “integrate the judicial system in the matrix of government and politics in which it actually operates.” Law professors may understand legal doctrines better than political scientists, but we know (or should know) the rest of the political system better than they do. Second, although judges inevitably make political decisions, their institutional environment leads them to act differently from other public officials. Most importantly, their legitimacy rests on their perceived impartiality within the plaintiff-defendant-judge triad. The conflict between judges’ role as impartial arbiter and enforcer of the laws of the regime can never be completely resolved and places powerful constraints on their actions. Third, the best way to understand the complex relationship between courts and other elements of the regime is comparative analysis. Shapiro played a major role in resuscitating comparative law, especially in his work comparing the US and the EU. All this he did with a rare combination of thick description and crisp, jargon-free analysis, certainly a rarity the political science of our time.