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Lawyers' Perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the Court a “Political” Institution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Brandon L. Bartels ,
Christopher D. Johnston  and
Alyx Mark
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Abstract

Do legal elites—lawyers admitted to federal appellate bars—perceive the Supreme Court as a “political” institution? Legal elites differentiate themselves from the mass public in the amount and sources of information about the Court. They also hold near-universal perceptions of Court legitimacy, a result we use to derive competing theoretical expectations regarding the impact of ideological disagreement on various Court perceptions. Survey data show that many legal elites perceive the Court as political in its decision making, while a minority perceive the Court as activist and influenced by external political forces. Ideological disagreement with the Court's outputs significantly elevates political perceptions of decision making, while it exhibits a null and moderate impact on perceptions of activism and external political influence, respectively. To justify negative affect derived from ideological disagreement, elites highlight the political aspects of the Court's decision making rather than engage in “global delegitimization” of the institution itself.

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Law & Society Review , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 761 - 794
Copyright
© 2015 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

We thank David Fontana and Barry Friedman for helpful suggestions on a previous version of this paper.

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