Reassessing the Supreme Court: How Decisions and Negativity Bias Affect Legitimacy

Christenson, Dino P.; Glick, David

doi:10.1177/1065912918794906

Cited by 48 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The 2015 Angus Reid survey, which probed respondents’ views on a series of SCC decisions, shows that Conservative supporters were less likely to support these decisions at a time when Conservative supporters were also less likely to support the courts in comparison with their partisan counterparts. Research on US courts employing a policy-based framework has identified a significant relationship between support of a court’s decision and general support for the court (Bartels and Johnston 2020; Christenson and Glick 2015; 2019). Future research on Canadian courts would be well served by investigating this relationship.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Support for Canadian Courts: Understanding the Roles of Institutional Trust and Partisanship

Crandall¹,

Lawlor²

2022

Can. j. law soc.

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Public support is a critical component of any court’s institutional legitimacy. Understanding the roots and durability of such support is therefore crucial. This article uses survey data to explore public attitudes towards Canadian courts from 2008 to 2019. This time period is especially relevant given the comparatively tumultuous relationship between the Supreme Court and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–2015). Notably, partisanship now appears to be a defining characteristic of court support in Canada, with Conservative Party supporters being less likely to support the courts. While institutional trust is also found to be a strong predictor of court support, this suggests public attitudes towards Canadian courts may no longer be as well shielded from the effects of changing political circumstances as they once were.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Support for Canadian Courts: Understanding the Roles of Institutional Trust and Partisanship

Crandall¹,

Lawlor²

2022

Can. j. law soc.

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“…Second, opinions of the court and nominees appear to be sufficiently partisan. Indeed, a growing literature demonstrates that the public's opinions of the court and preferences for nominees are shaped by partisan, ideological, and policy agreement (Gimpel and Wolpert, 1996; Bartels and Johnston, 2012; Christenson and Glick, 2015, 2019; Badas, 2016, 2019a,2019b; Sen, 2017). Moreover, partisan fighting and elite rhetoric further polarize these types of opinions (Rogowski and Stone, 2019).…”

Section: The Supreme Court As An Electoral Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

The Supreme Court as an electoral issue: evidence from three studies

Badas

Simas

2021

PSRM

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Judicial nominations, particularly those to the Supreme Court, have been a salient topic in recent presidential and senate elections. However, there has been little research to determine whether judicial nominations motivate political behavior. Across three studies we demonstrate the important role judicial nominations play in influencing political behavior. In Study 1, we analyze the extent to which voters perceive judicial nominations as an important electoral issue. We find that Republicans—and especially strong Republicans—are more likely to perceive judicial nominations as important. In Study 2, we analyze how congruence with an incumbent Senator's judicial confirmation votes influences voters’ decision to vote for the incumbent. We find that congruence with a Senator's judicial confirmation votes is a strong predictor of vote choice. Finally, in Study 3, we analyze data from an original conjoint experiment aimed at simulating a Senate primary election where voters must select among co-partisans. We find that Republican subjects are more likely to select a primary candidate who prioritizes confirming conservative Supreme Court nominees. Among Democratic subjects, however, we find that Democratic candidates who prioritize the Court might actually suffer negative electoral consequences. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of judicial nominations as an electoral issue.

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“…While positivity bias typically dominates these evaluations (Gibson and Caldeira 2009a), the experimental work referenced above—and Zilis (2018), in particular—highlights that group attachments play a role in spite of positivity bias. Moreover, negative sentiment often outweighs positive (Christenson and Glick 2019), and recent evidence suggests that attachments to non-judicial stimuli can trump attachment to the judiciary (Armaly, forthcoming).…”

Section: Affective Attachments Polarization and Court Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective Polarization and Support for the U.S. Supreme Court

Armaly

Enders

2021

Political Research Quarterly

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Support for the U.S. Supreme Court does not appear to be polarized on ideological or partisan lines. However, the form of polarization for which the mass political behavior field has amassed substantial support is affective in nature. We reconsider the hypothesis that polarization does not bear on Court support by examining the role of affective polarization. Using three sources of nationally representative survey data, we consistently find a negative relationship between affective polarization and both diffuse and specific support for the Court. Moreover, neither general nor Court-specific political sophistication mitigates the negative effect of affective polarization; rather, sophistication exacerbates affective polarization’s influence on support. Finally, panel data show that affective polarization precedes negative evaluations of the judiciary, though there is no support for the converse relationship. Evaluations of the Court are not free from the forces of polarization but are influenced by diverging extra-judicial emotional orientations toward in- and out-groups.

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Reassessing the Supreme Court: How Decisions and Negativity Bias Affect Legitimacy

Cited by 48 publications

References 45 publications

Public Support for Canadian Courts: Understanding the Roles of Institutional Trust and Partisanship

Public Support for Canadian Courts: Understanding the Roles of Institutional Trust and Partisanship

The Supreme Court as an electoral issue: evidence from three studies

Affective Polarization and Support for the U.S. Supreme Court

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