Judicial decision-making may ideally be impartial, but in reality it is influenced by many different factors, including institutional context, ideological commitment, fellow justices on a panel, and personal preference. Empirical literature in this area increasingly analyzes this complex collection of factors in isolation, when a larger sample size of comparative institutional contexts can help assess the impact of the procedures, norms, and rules on key institutional decisions, such as how appeals are decided. Four basic institutional questions from a comparative perspective help address these studies regardless of institutional context or government framework. Who decides, or how is a justice appointed? How does an appeal reach the court; what processes occur? Who is before the court, or how do the characteristics of the litigants and third parties affect judicial decision-making? How does the court decide the appeal, or what institutional norms and strategic behaviors do the judges perform to obtain their preferred outcome? This book explains how the answers to these institutional questions largely determine the influence of political preferences of individual judges and the degree of cooperation among judges at a given point in time. The authors apply these four fundamental institutional questions to empirical work on the Supreme Courts of the US, UK, Canada, India, and the High Court of Australia. The ultimate purpose of this book is to promote a deeper understanding of how institutional differences affect judicial decision-making, using empirical studies of supreme courts in countries with similar basic structures but with sufficient differences to enable meaningful comparison.

This book is about the man deep within me. He's the man who lives within everyone of us, but is locked in the dungeon of our heart and we would never want anyone to hear his thoughts. He's the bad side of me that no one thinks I have. Everyone believes I'm the gentle person who just takes the slap on the face and then turns the other cheek. What people don't know is that if I'm hurt by someone and lose control, then the beast within me speaks and acts out. He's the dragon that once ruled my life, but now is in a cage somewhere in my heart. He's the person I could be if he gets out of his cage and comes forth. He's the one who speaks in this book. He's the side of me you'd never want to know.