Michael A. Bailey and Forrest Maltzman
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151045
- eISBN:
- 9781400840267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151045.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter articulates the challenges that any empirically oriented scholar would have in devising a measure of judicial preferences. It shows that it is impossible to make robust across-time ...
More
This chapter articulates the challenges that any empirically oriented scholar would have in devising a measure of judicial preferences. It shows that it is impossible to make robust across-time comparisons using only Court voting. However, if we incorporate additional data we can create a measure of ideology that meets our needs and has face validity. The estimates we produce accord much better with the general understanding of Court movements over time as they indicate that Nixon's appointees moved the Court modestly to the right but that the Court remained quite moderate in historical terms in the early 1970s. The fundamental challenge is that it is hard to separate preference change from agenda change.Less
This chapter articulates the challenges that any empirically oriented scholar would have in devising a measure of judicial preferences. It shows that it is impossible to make robust across-time comparisons using only Court voting. However, if we incorporate additional data we can create a measure of ideology that meets our needs and has face validity. The estimates we produce accord much better with the general understanding of Court movements over time as they indicate that Nixon's appointees moved the Court modestly to the right but that the Court remained quite moderate in historical terms in the early 1970s. The fundamental challenge is that it is hard to separate preference change from agenda change.
Michael A. Bailey and Forrest Maltzman
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151045
- eISBN:
- 9781400840267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151045.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for disentangling the political and legal perspectives on Court behavior. It shows that, indeed, the problem is knotty and how it is impossible to fully ...
More
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for disentangling the political and legal perspectives on Court behavior. It shows that, indeed, the problem is knotty and how it is impossible to fully separate legal from policy-motivated behavior using only Supreme Court voting data. The knottiness of the problem is exacerbated by the fact that legal factors can exert a decisive effect on a Supreme Court case even when the voting breaks down along ideological lines. This is an incredibly important point. The relentless flow of cases in which justices break down in ideologically sensible ways should not be taken as evidence that justices' decisions are dominated by ideological policy orientations. Instead, the model makes it clear that law can be decisive even when we observe ideological patterns in Court voting. This is especially true when the justices share a consensus about the legal values in question.Less
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for disentangling the political and legal perspectives on Court behavior. It shows that, indeed, the problem is knotty and how it is impossible to fully separate legal from policy-motivated behavior using only Supreme Court voting data. The knottiness of the problem is exacerbated by the fact that legal factors can exert a decisive effect on a Supreme Court case even when the voting breaks down along ideological lines. This is an incredibly important point. The relentless flow of cases in which justices break down in ideologically sensible ways should not be taken as evidence that justices' decisions are dominated by ideological policy orientations. Instead, the model makes it clear that law can be decisive even when we observe ideological patterns in Court voting. This is especially true when the justices share a consensus about the legal values in question.
