Judicial Selection and Judicial Ambition: Evidence from the Mexican Judicial Elections

Judicial selection systems shape not only who ultimately serves on the bench but also who is willing to pursue judicial office in the first place. Yet existing scholarship largely evaluates selection rules by examining the characteristics judicial candidates, paying far less attention to how institutional design influences judicial ambition. We use a high-profile change in judicial selection—the implementation of popular judicial elections in Mexico—to examine the effect of judicial selection methods on judicial ambition. Drawing on four cross-sectional surveys of Mexican attorneys conducted before and after the implementation of judicial elections, we examine how changes to selection rules altered the willingness of legal professionals to seek judicial office. We argue that the introduction of judicial elections—combined with a preselection process that constrained access to the ballot and limited the prospects of candidates viewed as part of the political opposition—discouraged otherwise qualified attorneys from aspiring to the bench. Consistent with this expectation, we find a significant decline in expressed willingness to seek judicial office following the reform, particularly among attorneys with substantial professional experience. At the same time, attorneys became more likely to perceive the judiciary as closely aligned with the governing party, suggesting that the reforms altered not only career calculations but also broader beliefs about judicial autonomy. These findings highlight a crucial but often overlooked mechanism through which judicial selection systems shape courts: by structuring who opts in and who opts out of the candidate pool. The results carry important implications for judicial quality, judicial independence, and public support for judicial institutions, particularly in contexts where reforms are justified as enhancing accountability but may instead narrow and politicize the pathways to judicial office.