Courting Public Opinion: Supreme Court Impact on Public Opinion Reconsidered (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Journal of Politics, 2008
There is wide scholarly agreement that the frequent replacement of justices has kept the Supreme Court generally attuned to public opinion. Recent research indicates that, in addition to this indirect effect, Supreme Court justices respond directly to changes in public opinion. We explore the two causal pathways suggested to link public opinion directly to the behavior of justices and the implications of the nature and strength of these linkages for current debates concerning Supreme Court tenure. The recent increase in the stability of Court membership has raised questions about the continued efficacy of the replacement mechanism and renewed debates over mechanisms to limit judicial tenure. Our analysis provides little evidence that justices respond strategically to public opinion but provides partial support for the idea that justices’ preferences shift in response to the same social forces that shape the opinions of the general public. Our analysis offers preliminary evidence that—even in the absence of membership change—public opinion may provide a mechanism by which the preferences of the Court can be aligned with those of the public.
The Supreme Court's (Surprising?) Indifference to Public Opinion
Political Research Quarterly
Does the Supreme Court care what the public thinks? For decades, published articles have consistently reported a significant, positive relationship between public opinion and Supreme Court output. However, these studies posit mutually contradictory theories and report irreconcilable results. We advance this literature in two ways. First, we show the empirical "fact" driving the search for a workable theory is actually illusory. Second, we defend a theory of judicial independence. To be clear, we do not attempt to prove the Court does not respond to the public's opinions on policy. We argue that there is little reason the Court should respond and demonstrate that, contrary to twenty-five years of scholarship, there is no good empirical evidence suggesting it does.
Supreme Court Influence and the Awareness of Court Decisions
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2006
Using survey data collected about public opinion three issues before the Supreme Court during its 2004 term, we seek to measure the impact of oral arguments and decisions issued by the Court on public awareness of Supreme Court cases. We seek to improve upon the methodology typically used in this type of study by using quasi-experimental design with the Court decisions as the stimulus of hypothesized public awareness change. Our work assesses the impact of an elite signal on mass opinion, something difficult for public ...
Public Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court: A New Look at the Impact of Court Decisions
2008
Judicial scholars have long debated the notion that Court decisions can influence the public’s attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court. We engage this literature by introducing a theory and innovative methods to explore this link. We begin our analysis by examining the relationship between specific Court decisions and public confidence with aggregate time series data. Our analysis then shifts to an examination of individual-level survey data to examine the same hypothesis. Our results indicate that specific decisions can have a significant positive and negative on an individual-level confidence in the Court. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the theoretical and methodological debates over the influence of Court decisions on public opinion.
Does Public Opinion Influence the Supreme Court?: Probably Yes (But We’re Not Sure Why)
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 2011
The full title of Professor Friedman's book tells the story. BARRYFRIEDMAN, THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE: How PUBLIC OPINION HAS INFLUENCED THE SUPREME COURT AND SHAPED THE MEANING OF THE CONSTITUTION 14 (2009) (stating that the decisions of the Supreme Court on contentious issues align with popular approval and public understanding of the Constitution).
Public Perceptions of the Supreme Court: How Policy Disagreement Affects Legitimacy
The Forum
It is widely agreed that dissatisfaction with Supreme Court decisions harms the Court’s standing among the public. However, we do not yet know how or why Court performance affects legitimacy. We examine the role that mass perceptions of the Supreme Court’s institutional nature—particularly how “political” it is—plays in assessments of its legitimacy. We find that policy disagreement with Supreme Court decisions causes individuals to view that decision, and the Court itself, as being political in nature. We then show that the more political people think the Court is, the less legitimate they consider it to be. In this way, we show that policy disagreement with decisions strongly and directly reduces Court legitimacy.
On the Relationship between Public Opinion and Decision Making in the US Courts of Appeals
Political Research …, 2010
The potentially undemocratic nature of the federal courts has longed flamed the fires of the debate regarding the proper role of the judiciary in American politics. Extant scholarship concerning the influence of public opinion on judicial decision making focuses almost myopically on the U.S. Supreme Court, neglecting other significant judicial actors. We explore the extent to which the federal courts act as countermajoritarian institutions by investigating the impact of public preferences on decision making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Using data from 1961-2002, we examine whether the courts of appeals are influenced by public mood, both indirectly through the federal judicial selection process and directly via responsiveness to changes in circuit and national mood. Our results indicate that public opinion affects courts of appeals decision making indirectly by way of judicial replacements, but we fail to uncover evidence that courts of appeals judges respond directly to changes in public opinion at either the regional or national levels. We conclude that, absent membership turnover, the courts of appeals are not responsive to the will of the public.
Reassessing the Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on Public Opinion: Gay Civil Rights Cases
2006
The theoretical and empirical debate over the ability of the U.S. Supreme Court to influence public opinion through its decisions is far from settled. Scholars have examined the question using a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence, but there is no theoretical consensus, nor are the empirical studies without methodological weaknesses. We enter this debate in an attempt to bring some clarity to the theoretical approaches, overcome some of the methodological shortcomings, and bring a yet unstudied issue area, Court decisions on gay civil rights, under scrutiny. We argue that the ability of Court decisions to influence public opinion is a function of the salience of the issue, the political context, and case specific factors at the aggregate level. At the individual level these factors are also relevant, but citizen characteristics must also be taken into consideration. Our analysis of aggregate level and individual level opinion does indeed suggest that Court decisions can influence public opinion. However, the ability of Court decisions to influence public opinion is conditional. Our findings lend support to the legitimation hypothesis and the structural effects model. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings and suggestions for future research.