1. Decision Making by the Modern Supreme Court
- Author:
- Jeffrey Budziak
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Social science researchers face the challenge of balancing the competing demands of parsimony and comprehensiveness when attempting to explain human behavior. In the study of Supreme Court decision making, scholars have generally chosen the former, creating models of decision making that prioritize one factor at the expense of other considerations. In Decision Making by the Modern Supreme Court, Richard Pacelle, Brett Curry, and Bryan Marshall opt for the latter, rejecting the notion that any of the three dominant models (attitudinal, legal, and strategic) of Supreme Court decision making exhaustively explains the Courtʼs collective decisions. Rather, the authors construct an integrative model of Supreme Court decision making predicated on two theses. First, each model has something to contribute to our understanding of Court decision making. Second, the varying conditions faced by the Court will affect how each of these models impacts the Court ʼ s decisions. The authors argue that case con- text (constitutional vs. statutory review) and salience (civil rights vs. economic) structures when each model is likely to impact Court decision making. In the case of constitutional civil rights cases, attitudinal factors are predicted to dominate. For statutory economic decisions, legal factors are hypothesized to be most important. When the Court hears statutory civil rights cases or constitutional economic cases, strategic considerations are expected to play a central role (p. 52).
- Topic:
- Disaster Relief