








































Book Reviews


COMMONWEALTH, Volume 18, Issue 2 (2016). © 2016 The Pennsylvania Political Science Association.  
ISSN 2469-7672 (online). http://dx.doi.org/10.15367/cjppp.v18i2.127. All rights reserved.

Book Reviews

■ Choosing State Supreme Court Justices: Merit Selection and the 
Consequences of Institutional Reform. Greg Goelzhauser. 2016. 
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN: 978- 1-4 399- 1340- 6 (paper).

For years, Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and the Pennsylvania Bar 
Association have been working to change how Pennsylvania selects its judges. 
Currently, all state judges within the Commonwealth are chosen in partisan 
elections, but there has been a sustained drive to amend the state’s Constitu-
tion to create a form of merit selection, whereby a nominating commission 
forwards select names to the governor, who then makes the appointment. 
Many Pennsylvania officials, including governors, have supported the adop-
tion of merit selection. The question regarding how states choose their judges 
speaks to important concerns relating to democratic theory, namely whether 
the people should elect their judges or whether merit selection or gubernato-
rial appointment sufficiently shields judges from the whims of the masses.

In this book, Goelzhauser wades into the debate by presenting some 
needed empirical evidence related to judicial selection methods. For decades, 
numerous claims have been proffered that merit selection systems somehow 
produce “better” judges and legal outcomes. Rather than accepting this at 



Book Reviews 125

face value, Goelzhauser presents his evidence and adds much-needed nuance 
to the debate.

Given the recent clamor for merit selection, Goelzhauser first answers 
the question of how and when it originated. While states have experimented 
with various selection methods, states began moving toward merit selection 
in the early twentieth century, a reform consistent with the Progressive Era. 
At that time, many people were concerned with how often politics was mixed 
with the delivery of justice, which eventually led many states to experiment 
with merit selection. What is clear, however, is that in recent years, states have 
been moving away from judicial elections and replacing them with some form 
of merit selection. Currently, “more than half of all states have experimented 
with merit selection systems for at least some of their state supreme court 
justices” (p. 33).

In Chapter 3, Goelzhauser investigates “whether judicial selection systems 
produce state supreme court justices with different types of professional expe-
rience” (p. 48). The judicial selection debate produces competing claims about 
whether merit systems are more or less likely to produce judges with political 
connections. After compiling a database for all state supreme court judges 
from 1960 to 2004, Goelzhauser finds that there are “more similarities than 
differences across selection systems in terms of the work experience compiled 
by state supreme court justices” (p. 56) and that judges with varying experi-
ences are seated across all forms of selection systems.

Proponents of merit selection often claim that merit selection produces 
better qualified judges than any other form of judicial selection. In Chapter 4, 
Goelzhauser presents original empirical research to evaluate this claim. While 
“better qualified” is somewhat subjective, Goelzhauser argues that most indi-
viduals equate judicial qualifications with the quality of the law school the 
judge attended, as well as judicial experience. The results, however, demon-
strate that “no selection system enjoys a systematic advantage over any other 
system” (p. 82).

In recent years, we have also seen the claim that merit selection produces 
a more diverse judiciary. The idea behind this is that with judicial elections, 
the people choose candidates that are predominantly white and male. Once 
again, Goelzhauser does not accept these claims at face value; rather, he puts 
these claims to an empirical test. In Chapter 5, Goelzhauser “trace[s] the his-
torical development of the push toward gender and racial diversification of 
the judiciary” (p. 86), explains how “arguments linking merit selection with 
increased judicial diversification became more popular” during President 
Carter’s administration (pp. 86–87), and seeks to answer some of the claims 
using new data.



126 KYLE L. KREIDER

The diversity data is interesting. Goelzhauser demonstrates that “selection 
systems matter for the diversification of state supreme courts but not neces-
sarily in a consistent way” (p. 106). Merit selection is less likely than appoint-
ment to produce female or minority candidates but more likely than elections 
to produce nonwhite individuals.

As states, including Pennsylvania, are debating whether to replace judicial 
elections with either merit selection or gubernatorial appointment, policy-
makers should be aware of the empirical findings that speak to the many 
claims made by interest groups and organizations regarding the advantages 
and disadvantages of each judicial selection method. Goelzhauser’s research 
makes clear that there is no magic formula and that the strengths and weak-
nesses of each judicial selection method are more nuanced than we might 
want to admit. States should proceed with caution and temper their expecta-
tions regardless of which judicial selection method is adopted.

Kyle L. Kreider, Associate Professor of Political Science, Wilkes University

■ A Nice Place to Visit: Tourism and Urban Revitalization in the Postwar 
Rustbelt. Aaron Cowan. 2016. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.  
ISBN: 978-1-4399-1346-8 (paper).      

On April 20, 1965, Pennsylvania governor William Scranton spoke to a joint 
session of the General Assembly on the future of the Commonwealth’s urban 
communities. He stated that “[f]or of all human creations none is more per-
verse than the urban community. It gives with one hand, and takes away with 
the other. Cities exist, for example, to provide otherwise impossible opportu-
nities for economic development. Yet, they also spawn the cruelest poverty.” 
Governor Scranton’s comments succinctly sum up the difficulty cities faced in 
post- World War II America. Historically urban centers had been viewed as the 
economic lynchpins of metropolitan areas. However, suburbanization, dein-
dustrialization and race relations contributed to a white exodus from cities. 
Left behind were abandoned downtowns, poor housing stock, and a dearth of 
job opportunities that led to increased concentration of poverty. The primary 
question for policymakers was how to reverse this decline and revitalize cities 
and their place in American life.

Aaron Cowan’s A Nice Place to Visit explores the privileged place that 
political and civic leaders gave to tourism as the primary method to rejuvenate 
urban economies. He selects four midsized Rustbelt cities, because they were 
especially hurt by deindustrialization. Each city lacked major historical or 



Book Reviews 127

cultural attractions that would entice visitors, so they needed to create reasons 
for out-o f- towners and suburbanites in their metropolitan region to visit the 
downtown area. Cowan follows the development of tourism trends in postwar 
American cities through case studies of investments in hotels (Cincinnati), 
convention centers (St. Louis), sports stadiums (Pittsburgh), and festival mar-
ketplaces (Baltimore).

Several common themes emerge from the case studies. First, the revital-
ization of cities focused on encouraging economic development in central 
cities at the expense of other potential policy solutions. Cowan argues that 
there was a conscious, and not historically inevitable, decision to focus on 
economic growth to help cities deal with poverty rather than invest in human 
capital through education or other services. This became even more prevalent 
after urban riots in the 1960s led to a revolt of middle- class whites against pro-
grams such as the Model Cities of the Great Society. Second, clearing urban 
space for tourist development often meant displacing or marginalizing the 
poor, particularly minorities. Barriers or buffer zones were often developed 
to isolate downtowns from low- income communities. Consequently redevel-
oped urban spaces alleviated the fears of crime and otherness that were neces-
sary to attract conventions and tourists at the expense of being welcoming to 
everyone. Finally, the more successful attempts at urban revitalization created 
shared spaces across classes and races rather than creating isolated islands of 
economic activity within a city’s core. Anchor hotels and convention centers 
focused on luring national audiences to cities and offered little of interest to 
the surrounding metropolitan area. Conversely, at their best, stadiums and 
festival markets such as Baltimore’s Harbor Place attracted tourists as well as 
residents from the city and the surrounding suburbs.

Cowan positions himself between advocates of tourism development and 
critics who claim it has resulted in the “Disneyfication” of the urban experi-
ence. His case studies show that while tourism has not been a panacea for 
urban ills, it has improved the financial footing of cities and, in some cases, 
reconnected them with their suburban populations. Cowan concludes that 
tourism is an important ingredient in a comprehensive plan to revitalize cities.

The discussion of the renaissance of Pittsburgh is a primary example. 
The effort was led by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development 
(ACCD), an organization that had the support of business and political leaders. 
Over several decades ACCD spearheaded a comprehensive plan revitalizing 
the city through “pollution and flood controls, slum clearance, redevelop-
ment of downtown, and heavy private and public investment in restricting 
the region’s economy” (p. 104). The plan to diversify the economy by focusing 
on higher education, finance, and technology allowed the city to weather the 



128 J. WESLEY LECKRONE

decline of the steel industry. This included many of the tools used by other 
cities in the second half of the twentieth century. Eminent domain was used 
to condemn and demolish abandoned or unsightly properties downtown. 
They were replaced with new business development, a convention center, civic 
arena, and a park. However, Cowan contends that one tourism project was the 
lynchpin that brought the entire master plan together to rebrand Pittsburgh: 
Three Rivers Stadium. He argues sports were an important part of consumer 
culture in the 1970s that helped attract suburbanites to the city. A new sta-
dium, built on reclaimed railroad and industrial property across the river 
from downtown, combined with the success of the Steelers and Pirates during 
the 1970s, helped to rebrand the city. Cowan argues that the national atten-
tion paid to the teams and the stadium provided positive press for the city and 
helped shift its image from a “smoky center of industry” to the “City of Cham-
pions.” Most important, it contributed to a sense of civic pride that united 
the Pittsburgh metropolitan region. Hotel- o r convention- centered tourism 
sought to segregate visitors from the urban population. Alternatively, Three 
Rivers Stadium was a public expenditure that helped bring together people of 
all races and socioeconomic classes.

Cowan concludes that the attention paid to tourism as a form of economic 
development in the last half of the twentieth century was a conscious choice by 
urban leaders to find an easy fix to deindustrialization and suburbanization. 
This focus helped stem the economic decline of cities. However, poverty is 
still a major problem in all four cities explored in A Nice Place to Visit. Cowan 
seems to prefer a policy solution that would focus on revitalizing human capi-
tal rather than economic development. However, the pragmatist in him is 
resigned to the attention given to growth in neo- liberal city regimes. In that 
context Pittsburgh seems like a good model to follow, if you’re a city leader.

J. Wesley Leckrone, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, 
Widener University

■ Undocumented Fears: Immigration and the Politics of Divide and 
Conquer in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Jamie Longazel. 2016. Philadelphia: 
Temple University Press. ISBN: 978- 1- 4399- 1268- 3 (paper).

In Undocumented Fears: Immigration and the Politics of Divide and Conquer 
in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Jamie Longazel frames a liberation sociological 
approach to the study of racial and ethnic change in small-town America. 



Book Reviews 129

The author uses the philosophy of “neo- liberalism,” defined as “implement-
ing the most ruthless economic and political policies without having to open 
such actions to public debate and dialogue,” to discuss one city’s reaction to 
the rapid growth of its Hispanic population. In his sociological approach, 
the author attempts to compare and contrast a “Latino threat narrative” to 
a “white affirmation narrative.” Referencing many sources and citations, the 
author examines the approximately five to six years of socioeconomic and 
political activities before, during, and after the passage of Hazelton’s munici-
pal ordinance: the Illegal Immigration Reform Act (2006) (IIRA).

While much more narrowly focused, the theory applied in this study 
appears to be similar to that utilized by Dan Rose in his work entitled, Energy 
Transition and the Local Community: A Theory of Society Applied to Hazle-
ton, Pennsylvania. Rose, like Longazel, posits that dramatic socio- economic 
changes within small towns are often addressed not with progressive 
approaches, or with a best- possible- solution scenario; instead, the objective 
is to retain the status quo, devising a policy acceptable to the community. In 
a broader sense, Cohen, et al.’s Garbage Can Model of Policy Making may be 
more applicable here, because it suggests that independent problems, oppor-
tunities, and solutions exist until a solution is selected that fits rather than a 
solution developed for the specific problem.

The author effectively depicts the creation and success of the economic 
development organization known as CAN DO. However, the unwillingness or 
inability of the CAN DO leadership to change or update its corporate model 
led to business locating in its industrial park that offered mostly low- skilled 
and low- paying jobs.

The Hazelton community, which had changed little in ethnicity and racial 
makeup (98–99% white non-H ispanic) in over 50 years, attempted to solve 
its societal problems by not changing. The white population misunderstood 
the different languages and cultures of those newly arrived residents, thereby 
creating a racial divide and the IIRA. Longazel’s depiction of the divisions in 
Hazleton Pennsylvania, during the first decade of the twenty- first century is 
no different from those divisions of a century earlier, when white, English- 
speaking residents discriminated against the white, non- English-s peaking 
immigrants. Race was not a factor. The story of American immigration always 
seems to involve one or more established ethnic groups looking down the 
socioeconomic ladder on those newly arriving. 

The author provides extensive commentary about the ordinance and the 
legal proceedings that challenged it. A more thorough analysis of the politi-
cal structure and the events surrounding the ordinance, however, might have 



130 DAVID P. SOSAR

revealed that both sides of the conflict lacked effective leadership, which could 
have promoted the “building of bridges.” Without effective leadership and 
fruitful dialogue, compromise and equitable solutions cannot be achieved.

The author is clear in his presentation and applies his theory in an effec-
tive manner. Based on the extensive notes provided, the footnote section can 
be read separately as an explanation of theory and analysis. The concepts used 
are applied to the events in the creation of and battle over the ordinance, but 
not to achieving a solution to the community’s problems. With further politi-
cal analysis of both sides in this conflict, one may understand what actions 
the leaders might have taken to avert the ordinance and bring the two com-
munities together.

David P. Sosar, Associate Professor of Political Science, King’s College




