The Supreme Court as an Opinion Leader

Marshall, Thomas R.

doi:10.1177/1532673x8701500107

Cited by 30 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Still, their view does enjoy empirical utility. For example, studies of legitimation examining aggregate opinion data often have had no alternative but to use measures of policy agreement as surrogates for policy legitimacy (e.g., Marshall 1987Marshall , 1989). Adamany (1973) presents a distinction that may help to reconcile the two views of policy legitimacy.…”

Section: Defining Policy Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Legitimacy and the Supreme Court: The Sources and Contexts of Legitimation

Mondak

1994

Political Research Quarterly

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Conflicting evidence regarding the ability of the Supreme Court to confer policy legitimacy suggests that the process of legitimation is both subtle and multifaceted. Two aspects of this process are examined here First, the rela tionship between policy legitimacy and policy agreement is explored. Ex perimental tests demonstrate that policy legitimacy emerges from a direct process of symbolic legitimation, and through an indirect process of per suasive legitimation. Second, the mediated character of Supreme Court rul ings is examined as it relates to the Court's ability to enhance policy legitimacy. Experimental tests reveal that the Court's power of legitimation remains con sistent regardless of variance in the specific content of news coverage Col lectively, findings highlight the intricacy of policy legitimation while providing evidence that the institutional legitimacy maintained by the Supreme Court can produce significant shifts in policy evaluations.

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Section: Defining Policy Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Legitimacy and the Supreme Court: The Sources and Contexts of Legitimation

Mondak

1994

Political Research Quarterly

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“…A prominent explanation of the effect of Court rulings on public opinion is the legitimation hypothesis (Adamany 1973;Casey 1974;Dahl 1957;Kessel 1966;Marshall 1987;Murphy and Tanenhaus 1969). According to this line of argument, when the Court rules, it confers legitimacy on the position it favors.…”

Section: Do Court Rulings Affect Public Opinion?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They compare the level of public support prior to a decision with the level of support after the decision. Marshall (1987) considers 18 Court decisions since the 1930s. In his analysis the shift between predecision and postdecision opinion is taken as a dependent variable to be explained by several independent variables such as unanimity of the Court, liberalism of the decision, and the time lag between the polls.…”

Section: Do Court Rulings Affect Public Opinion?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adamany (1973) cites a long list of disap-pointed attempts to demonstrate the existence of such influence. More recently, Marshall's (1987) study of 18 court decisions found that the average shift following the decision was virtually zero. However, Marshall did find some positive evidence in the case of liberal, activist decisions, after a time lag.…”

Section: Do Court Rulings Affect Public Opinion?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion

Franklin¹,

Kosaki²

1989

Am Polit Sci Rev

206

164

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The United States Supreme Court has a historical role as a “republican schoolmaster,” inculcating virtues in the citizenry. The role as teacher to the republic also serves the interests of the Court. As the “weakest branch,” the Supreme Court needs public support if its decisions are to be effective. We investigate the Court's ability to win popular support for its rulings, specifically in the case of Roe v. Wade. The analysis shows that the Court's decision did affect public attitudes but not as previous work would predict. While support for abortions to protect health increased as a result of the Court's decision, the public became more polarized over “discretionary” abortions. The puzzle is what process can account for these disparate reactions. We develop a theory resting on interpersonal influences to explain these results, arguing that the social interpretation of events drives the differing outcomes. This theory is then tested against a purely psychological alternative. The closing discussion considers how these results can be extended to the general problem of public decisions and popular responses, including presidential actions and the influence of the media.

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“…CONCLUSION Although it seems that the Court did exert a positive influence when making policy in a moral/social area, especially among those who held the Court in high esteem, it is not clear why it had this effect only when it decided conservatively. It is possible, as Marshall (1987) argued, that the ideological direction of the ruling matters. However, he witnessed positive poll shifts when the Court ruled in a liberal and activist fashion.…”

Section: The Results Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Supreme Court and Opinion Change

Hoekstra

1995

American Politics Quarterly

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In this study the author examines the extent to which the Supreme Court acts as an opinion leader through its ability to induce attitude change. The author employs an experimental design with liberal and conservative rulings on one economic and one civil liberties issue, comparing the influence of the Supreme Court, Congress, and a nonpartisan think tank as sources of policies. The design was chosen in an attempt to eliminate outside sources of influence and to determine better the Supreme Court's ability to cause change in opinion. The results demonstrate that under some circumstances the Court can indeed influence opinion in the direction of its rulings, especially for those who regard the Court positively.

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The Supreme Court as an Opinion Leader

Cited by 30 publications

References 29 publications

Policy Legitimacy and the Supreme Court: The Sources and Contexts of Legitimation

Policy Legitimacy and the Supreme Court: The Sources and Contexts of Legitimation

Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion

The Supreme Court and Opinion Change

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