Fluidity on the United States Supreme Court: A Reexamination

Brenner, Saul

doi:10.2307/2110831

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…These are among the factors that Howard (1968) Brenner (1980) and Brenner and Spaeth (1986) observe between conference and final votes indicates that Justices often do change their minds (and see Schwartz, 1985Schwartz, , 1988. flexibility may be even greater prior to taking a formal stance in conference voting.…”

Section: Theoretical Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

et al. 1992

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Abstract. Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the u.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project. Peterson, who has published on a wide variety of topics in biopolitics and political behavior, is Professor of Political Science at Alfred University. Glendon Schubert, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, is a long-time and prolific student of judicial politics, constitutional law, and biopolitics.Stephen Wasby is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany. His career has been devoted to the study of public law and judicial politics.A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT of political behavior occurs through face-to-face interaction. The face-to-face setting is present when small groups meet, when candidates face off in debates, and when lawyers negotiate in the corridors of courthouses (Dorff and Steiner, 1981;Nardulli, Flemming and Eisenstein, 1984). The face-to-face setting cuts across levels of government from municipal councils to international summit meetings. It also cuts across time; the face-to-face setting was no doubt even more common in politics 50,000 years ago than it is today. Although a substantial proportion of face-to-face interactions is not accessible to political researchers, another substantial proportion is. Indeed, there is a rapidly expanding wealth of raw political data stored on videotape, awaiting the attention and curiosity of political scientists.' Advances in video recording and microcomputing technology have made the concept of systematic observation of face-to-face politics more physically practical and financially feasible for political researchers (J. N. Schubert, 1988). In contrast with other scientific disciplines in and out of the social sciences, political science has no tradition of direct, observational field research. A few political scientists, however, have begun to apply the theoretical and methodological approach of human ethology in observational studies of politics (Watts,

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Section: Theoretical Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

et al. 1992

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“…In his studies of fluidity, Brenner (1980Brenner ( , 1982 found that justices were no more likely to change their votes in important, or salient, cases than in those of lesser importance. He defined a salient case as one that appears in Slotnick's (1979: 62) list of cases that are contained in at least one of five selected constitutional law casebooks.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voting Fluidity and the Attitudinal Model of Supreme Court Decision Making

Hagle

Spaeth²

1991

Western Political Quarterly

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“…An analysis of the docket books and other records of the justices indicated that shifts in votes from the conference to the final opinion were 'commonplace' (Howard, 1968). These vote shifts, or fluidity to use the political scientists' term, occur in at least half of the cases, and even more frequently on less important cases (Brenner, 1982).…”

Section: Appellate Judges and Group Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%