Abstract
The 50 states gradually are adopting centralized judicial management and court reorganization. Viewing change in judicial administration as part of the adoption of policy innovations, the research examines the impact of merit selection and a number of socioeconomic and political variables on patterns of innovation in the 50 states. Contrary to the expectations of legal reformers, merit selection has little or no bearing on decisions of state governments to develop modern, centralized court systems. Instead, general patterns of policy innovation and the overall size of state government are important correlates of judicial centralization and management.

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