The Company They Keep

Preserving [the Supreme Court's] independence has grown far more difficult for reasons ably explored in Neal Devins and Lawrence Baums' The Company They Keep, a carefully argued and disturbing portrait of how partisan politics threaten to engulf the Court. * New York Review of Books *
Drawing on the methodologies of social psychology and political science, Professors Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum argue that the ideological stances of Supreme Court Justices are informed by a more subtle force than party loyalty or changing public norms... Rather than framing the judiciary as politicians in robes, Devins and Baum's analysis seeks to expose the Justices of the Supreme Court as something perhaps more sinister - that is, as humans seeking validation.
The Company They Keep breaks from the literature on Supreme Court decision-making by describing judicial partisanship as a social phenomenon-a consequence, in part, of justices wanting approval from their elite peers. Devins, a law professor at William & Mary, and Baum, a political scientist at Ohio State, develop their argument by importing insights from social psychology. Devins and Baum put Supreme Court watchers on the right track by focusing on the justices not simply as individuals, but as members of teams that play in partisan political leagues The Company They Keep reminds us that today's Supreme Court justices, far from calling balls and strikes, are very much in the game. And they're playing to win. * Mark A. Graber, Washington Monthly *
This fascinating book draws not only on political science and legal scholarship but on social psychology to bring us important new insights into the behavior of the Supreme Court justices whose decisions shape our constitutional order. * Linda Greenhouse, Lecturer, Yale Law School *
The Company They Keep is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand today's Supreme Court. Drawing upon a wide range of material from political science and American history, Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum carefully explain how partisan polarization has come to the Supreme Court. Their discussions of networks of legal elites and of the Republican Partys somewhat more effective use of those networks are particularly illuminating. * Mark Tushnet, William *
In a fascinating new book titled The Company They Keep to be published early next year, two prominent students of judicial behavior, Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum, explore the Supreme Court's current polarization through the lens of social psychology...It's a fresh observation of an old phenomenon. - Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times