The Supreme Court, 1888–1940: An Empirical Overview

Wood, Sandra L.; Keith, Linda Camp; Lanier, Drew Noble; Ogundele, Ayo

doi:10.1017/s0145553200023269

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…For this reason, Justices held back their dissents to maintain the façade of a consensual norm (Walker et al. 1988; Wood et al. 1998; Epstein et al.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Explains Dissent on the High Court of Australia? An Empirical Assessment Using a Cointegration and Error Correction Approach

Narayan

Smyth

2007

J Empirical Legal Studies

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This article examines the factors influencing the annual dissent rate on the High Court of Australia from its first full year of operation in 1904 up to 2001 within a cointegration and error correction framework. We hypothesize that institutional factors, socioeconomic complexity, and leadership style explain variations in the dissent rate on the High Court of Australia over time. The institutional factors that we consider are the Court's caseload, whether it had discretion to select the cases it hears, and whether it was a final court of appeal. To measure socioeconomic complexity we use the divorce rate, urbanization rate, and real GDP per capita. Our main finding is that in the long run and short run, caseload and real income are the main factors influencing dissent. We find that a 1 percent increase in caseload and real income reduce the dissent rate on the High Court of Australia by 0.3 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively, holding other factors constant.

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“…For this reason, Justices held back their dissents to maintain the façade of a consensual norm (Walker et al. 1988; Wood et al. 1998; Epstein et al.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Explains Dissent on the High Court of Australia? An Empirical Assessment Using a Cointegration and Error Correction Approach

Narayan

Smyth

2007

J Empirical Legal Studies

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“…In order to test the relationship between the Supreme Court's policy preferences and its nonconsensual opinions over the long term, we employ data from 1888 to 1999 arising from three sources. Data for the 1888–1940 Supreme Court terms stem from Wood et al (1998a, 1998b); data for 1941–1952 issue from Wood (1994); and, data for the terms 1953–1999 derive from Spaeth (2001). All coding decisions for these sources of data were made following the Spaeth (2001) protocol.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 3 See Lanier (2003), Lanier & Wood (2001) and Wood et al (1998a, 1998b) for analyses of the pre‐1945 Supreme Court. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

I Respectfully Dissent: Consensus, Agendas, and Policymaking on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1888–1999

Hurwitz

Lanier

2004

Review of Policy Research

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Scholars have been intrigued by the abrupt change in the rate of nonconsensual opinions that the Supreme Court has published over time, which substantially increased beginning with the battles concerning the court's New Deal transition in the 1930s. Notwithstanding, none of the prior studies on this topic has made any link, whether theoretical or empirical, between the Supreme Court's issuance of these special opinions and the justices' policy preferences. We utilize fractional cointegration to examine the relationship between consensus, agendas, and decisionmaking on the Supreme Court. We find that there is a systematic interrelation between the justices' policy preferences and their issuance of nonconsensual opinions that is dependent upon the policy agenda before the court. In turn, this connection influences the court's policy outcomes, demonstrating that the justices' behavior regarding nonconsensual opinion writing is a classic example of judicial policymaking.

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“…Much of this literature utilizes the term "consensual norm," although how it is defined differs across studies. Wood et al (1998), Lanier and Wood (2001) and Epstein et al (2001) have analysed the US Supreme Court prior to the 1940s. Epstein et al (2001) argue that in fact there is no empirical support for the existence of a consensual norm as there was no private disagreement among US Supreme Court justices, although there may have been manifest agreement among them publicly.…”

Section: What Do We Mean By a "Consensual Norm"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Consensual Norm on the High Court of Australia: 1904-2001

Narayan

Smyth

2005

International Political Science Review

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This article applies cointegration and error-correction testing to re-examine Smyth’s (2002) conclusion that there is no consensual norm on the High Court of Australia (High Court). While Smyth (2002) concluded there was no consensual norm on the High Court using data up to 1975, we find that dissenting opinions and concurring opinions on the High Court are cointegrated once Smyth’s (2002) dataset is updated to 2001. In Smyth (2002) it was suggested that a consensual norm never emerged on the High Court because the institutional arrangements were hostile to building consensus. This entails defining “consensual norm” to mean a norm where there is a high level of consensus. But, this interpretation of how the term “consensual norm” was used in Caldeira and Zorn (1998) is incorrect. Instead Caldeira and Zorn (1998) use the term consensual norm to refer to a prevailing norm where there is some level of consensus, which could be either high or low. We offer an explanation for our findings in this article which is consistent with this reading of Caldeira and Zorn (1998). In light of the long tradition of seriatim opinion writing on the High Court, we interpret our findings as being consistent with the existence of a low consensus equilibrium, at least relative to the US Supreme Court before the 1940s.

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The Supreme Court, 1888–1940: An Empirical Overview

Cited by 6 publications

References 19 publications

What Explains Dissent on the High Court of Australia? An Empirical Assessment Using a Cointegration and Error Correction Approach

What Explains Dissent on the High Court of Australia? An Empirical Assessment Using a Cointegration and Error Correction Approach

I Respectfully Dissent: Consensus, Agendas, and Policymaking on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1888–1999

The Consensual Norm on the High Court of Australia: 1904-2001

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