This article investigates the implementation effects of China's recent reforms to centralize its court system and offers an explanation of why such centralization efforts largely failed. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with judicial personnel from four localities, the study shows that local courts’ structural dependence upon same-level party-states is perpetuated or, in some cases, is even exacerbated, despite the unprecedented reform plans to centralize the budgetary and personnel management of the judicial system. Further investigation finds that, contrary to what existing assessments suggest, implementation failure is less a result of regional disparities in resources than of the party-state's own reliance on its horizontal line of power concentration and hierarchy, which is a core feature of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) one-party rule and hinders the party-state's own attempts to strengthen both judicial autonomy and centralization. The article thus challenges two extant notions on recent political-legal developments in China – that the CCP regime has substantially centralized its judiciary along the vertical line, and that judicial autonomy can continue to increase and manifest both under the conditions of, and serving the purpose of, deepening one-party authoritarianism.

High-profile advocates are pushing states to move away from judicial elections and toward a “merit” method because it purportedly produces the best quality judges. Quality, however, is difficult to measure empirically. Rather than attempt to measure quality, we examine whether certain types of state supreme courts are more forward-looking than others. States are likely to desire forward-looking behavior among judges because it can protect judicial legitimacy, help states to control policy, and could be more efficient than myopic behavior. Using a recent innovation in matching called covariate-balancing propensity scores, we find that the U.S. Supreme Court is equally likely to review and reverse decisions by judges regardless of their selection or retention methods. These results suggest that state supreme court justices, no matter their paths of getting to (and staying on) their courts, are roughly equal in terms of forward-looking behavior.