Hostname: page-component-546b4f848f-fhndm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2023-06-05T07:11:32.578Z Has data issue: false Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": true } hasContentIssue false
  • English

Public Support for Judicial Philosophies: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Christopher N. Krewson  and
Ryan J. Owens
Christopher N. Krewson*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, USA
Ryan J. Owens
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
*
Contact the corresponding author, Christopher N. Krewson, at chris_krewson@byu.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine whether the public evaluates Supreme Court nominees on the basis of judicial philosophies when presented with a description of those philosophies. Employing a conjoint experiment, we find that the public will evaluate nominees’ judicial philosophies as well as the nominees’ partisanship, ideology, and qualifications. We also discover significant differences between Republicans and Democrats. These results have important implications for the future of judicial nominations, framing, and public support for the judiciary.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 2021 , pp. 89 - 110
Copyright
© 2021 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Justin Wedeking recused himself from this manuscript because of a conflict of interest with one of the authors and appointed an Editorial Board member—Michael Zilis—as editor.

References

Abraham, Henry J. 1992. Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Abraham, Henry J.. 1999. Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Armaly, Miles T. 2018. “Politicized Nominations and Public Attitudes toward the Supreme Court in the Polarization Era.” Justice System Journal 39 (3: 193–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badas, Alex, and Stauffer, Katelyn E.. 2018. “Someone Like Me: Descriptive Representation and Support for Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Research Quarterly 71 (1: 127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bansak, Kirk, Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel J., and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2017. “Beyond the Breaking Point? Survey Satisficing in Conjoint Experiments.” SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2959146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Brandon L., and Johnston, Christopher D.. 2011. “Political Justice? Perceptions of Politicization and Public Preferences toward the Supreme Court Appointment Process.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (1: 105–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Jody C., Morris, Jonathan S., and Walth, Natasha L.. 2012. “The Fey Effect: Young Adults, Political Humor, and Perceptions of Sarah Palin in the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (1: 95–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, Graeme, and Imai, Kosuke. 2012. “Statistical Analysis of List Experiments.” Political Analysis 20 (1: 47–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Stephen L. 1994. The Confirmation Mess: Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Chen, Philip G., and Bryan, Amanda C.. 2018. “Judging the ‘Vapid and Hollow Charade’: Citizen Evaluations and the Candor of US Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Behavior 40 (2: 495–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christenson, Dino P., and Glick, David M.. 2015. “Chief Justice Roberts’s Health Care Decision Disrobed: The Microfoundations of the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (2: 403–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Paul M., and Ringhand, Lori A.. 2016. “The Institutionalization of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.” Law and Social Inquiry 41 (1: 126–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comiskey, Michael. 1999. “Not Guilty: The News Media in the Supreme Court Confirmation Process.” Journal of Law and Policy 15 (1: 1–36.Google Scholar
Comiskey, Michael.. 2008. “The Supreme Court Appointment Process: Lessons from Filling the Rehnquist and O’Connor Vacancies.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (2: 355–58.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and Discontent, ed. Apter, David. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. 2006. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics (1964).” Critical Review 18 (1–3): 1–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornyn, John. 2003. “Our Broken Judicial Confirmation Process and the Need for Filibuster Reform.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 27:182–230.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Keeter, Scott. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Eagly, Alice H., and Chaiken, Shelly. 1993. The Psychology of Attitudes. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Engst, Benjamin G., Thomas Gschwend, and Sternberg, Sebastian. 2018. “Who Sits on the Bench? Evaluation of Judicial Nominees for Constitutional Courts.” https://sebastiansternberg.github.io/pdf/DCEJudges1.pdf.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Segal, Jeffrey A.. 2005. Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, Segal, Jeffrey A., Staudt, Nancy, and Lindstadt, Rene. 2005. “The Role of Qualifications in the Confirmation of Nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.” Florida State University Law Review 32 (4: 1145–73.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 1992. “The Etiology of Public Support for the Supreme Court.” American Journal of Political Science 36:635–64.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2011. “Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?” Law and Society Review 45 (1: 195–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J.. 2017. “Reconsidering Positivity Theory: What Roles Do Politicization, Ideological Disagreement, and Legal Realism Play in Shaping US Supreme Court Legitimacy?” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 14 (3: 592–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guliuzza, Frank, III, Reagan, Daniel J., and Barrett, David M.. 1992. “Character, Competency, and Constitutionalism: Did the Book Nomination Represent a Fundamental Shift in Confirmation Criteria.” Marquette Law Review 75 (2: 409–37.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel J., and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2013. “Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments.” Political Analysis 22 (1: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillygus, D. Sunshine, Jackson, Natalie, Young, and M.. 2014. “Professional Respondents in Non-probability Online Panels.” In Online Panel Research: A Data Quality Perspective, ed. Hoboken, Mario Callegaro., NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Hoekstra, Valerie, and LaRowe, Nicholas. 2013. “Judging Nominees: An Experimental Test of the Impact of Qualifications and Divisiveness on Public Support for Nominees to the Federal Courts.” Justice System Journal 34 (1: 38–61.Google Scholar
Johnson, Timothy R., Wahlbeck, Paul J., and Spriggs II, James F. 2006. “The Influence of Oral Argumentation before the U.S. Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review 100 (1: 99–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1979. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisions under Risk.” Econometrica 47 (2: 263–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaslovsky, Jaclyn, Rogowski, Jon C., and Stone, Andrew R.. 2018. “Descriptive Representation, Public Opinion, and the Courts.” Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogowski/files/kaslovsky-rogowski-stone.pdf.Google Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan P., Lax, Jeffrey R., and Phillips, Justin H.. 2010. “Public Opinion and Senate Confirmation of Supreme Court Nominees.” Journal of Politics 72 (3: 767–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltese, John Anthony. 1995. The Selling of Supreme Court Nominees. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Matthijsse, Suzette M., Edith D. De Leeuw, and Hox, Joop J. 2015. “Internet Panels, Professional Respondents, and Data Quality.” Methodology 11 (3: 81–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New York Times. 2005. “Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.” September 9. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/13/politics/politicsspecial1/13text-roberts.html.Google Scholar
Matthijsse, Suzette M., Edith D. De Leeuw, and Hox, Joop J. 2017. “Full Transcript and Video: Trump Picks Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court.” January 31. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/us/politics/full-transcript-video-trump-neil-gorsuch-supreme-court.html.Google Scholar
Matthijsse, Suzette M., De Leeuw, Edith D., and Hox, Joop J. 2018. “Trump Announces Brett Kavanaugh as Supreme Court Nominee: Full Transcript and Video.” July 9. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/us/politics/trump-supreme-court-announcement-transcript.html.Google Scholar
Ono, Yoshikuni, and Burden, Barry C.. 2017. “The Contingent Effects of Candidate Sex on Voter Choice.” Political Behavior 41:583–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringhand, Lori A., and Collins, Paul M.. 2010. “May It Please the Senate: An Empirical Analysis of the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings of Supreme Court Nominees, 1939–2009.” American University Law Review 60:589–641.Google Scholar
Rogowski, Jon C., and Stone, Andrew R.. 2018. “How Politicized Judicial Nominations Affect Attitudes toward the Courts.” Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogowski/files/scalia-conjoint.pdf?m=1527684806.Google Scholar
Scalia, Antonin S. 1997. A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J. 1996. “The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of United States Supreme Court Justices.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (4: 971–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Maya. 2017. “How Political Signals Affect Public Support for Judicial Nominations: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment.” Political Research Quarterly 70 (2: 374–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somin, Ilya. 2006. “Knowledge about Ignorance: New Directions in the Study of Political Information.” Critical Review 18 (1–3): 255–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Rasinski, Kenneth. 1991. “Procedural Justice, Institutional Legitimacy, and the Acceptance of Unpopular US Supreme Court Decisions: A Reply to Gibson.” Law and Society Review 25 (3: 621–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unger, Harlow Giles. 2014. John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation. Boston: Da Capo.Google Scholar
Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Krewson and Owens Supplementary material
Download undefined(File)
File 323 KB