Part I lays out why incentives and audiences matter. We explain the idea of judicial audiences and how they shape the judiciary in different legal families. We provide a common framework for understanding what have been traditionally perceived as very different institutions, namely the so-called “career” judiciary and the “recognition” judiciary. This framework provides new insights into the profound changes judiciaries have been going through in many different jurisdictions across the world.

Part II considers the particular dynamics of internal and external audiences for judicial performance, using case studies from various judicial systems. In particular, we look at traditional civil law jurisdictions such as France, Italy and Japan where judicial activism has progressively made its way. We also compare the United States and Britain, examining recent British constitutional reforms in detail and speculating about the future consequences of the new institutional design. We argue that our framework provides a useful way of understanding the main forces shaping the recent changes in all these different jurisdictions, thus providing a common ground for analysis.