Gibson / Caldeira Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations

Positivity Theory and the Judgments of the American People
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3060-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

In recent years the American public has witnessed several hard-fought battles over nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. In these heated confirmation fights, candidates' legal and political philosophies have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations examines one such fight--over the nomination of Samuel Alito--to discover how and why people formed opinions about the nominee, and to determine how the confirmation process shaped perceptions of the Supreme Court's legitimacy.

Drawing on a nationally representative survey, James Gibson and Gregory Caldeira use the Alito confirmation fight as a window into public attitudes about the nation's highest court. They find that Americans know far more about the Supreme Court than many realize, that the Court enjoys a great deal of legitimacy among the American people, that attitudes toward the Court as an institution generally do not suffer from partisan or ideological polarization, and that public knowledge enhances the legitimacy accorded the Court. Yet the authors demonstrate that partisan and ideological infighting that treats the Court as just another political institution undermines the considerable public support the institution currently enjoys, and that politicized confirmation battles pose a grave threat to the basic legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gibson, James L.

Caldeira, Gregory A.

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Staats- und Verfassungsrecht
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Demokratie
• Rechtswissenschaften Allgemeines Verfahrens-, Zivilprozess- und Insolvenzrecht Allgemeines Prozessrecht, Kostenrecht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables ix

Preface xi

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: The Public and Supreme Court Nominations 1

Changes in Attitudes toward Judicial Institutions 4

The Theory of Positivity Bias 7

Outlining the Chapters That Follow 14

CHAPTER TWO: Knowing about Courts 17

Assessing Public Information about Law and Courts 19

Empirical Evidence of Mass Ignorance 20

Discussion and Concluding Comments 34

Appendix 2.A: Survey Design, The 2001 Survey 35

CHAPTER THREE: The Popular Legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court 36

Theories of Institutional Legitimacy 38

Measuring Institutional Legitimacy 44

Accounting for Individual-Level Variability in Institutional Loyalty 49

Discussion 61

CHAPTER FOUR: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination 63

The Confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court 66

The Positivity Theory Hypotheses 69

Assessments of the Confirmation Process 71

The Models 72

Determinants of Confirmation Preferences 85

Discussion and Concluding Comments 93

CHAPTER FIVE: A Dynamic Test of the Positivity Bias Hypothesis 96

Applying the Theory of Positivity Bias to Confirmations 97

Measuring Change in Attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court 98

The Model of Change in Institutional Support 103

Findings 110

Discussion and Concluding Comments 119

CHAPTER SIX: Concluding Thoughts, Theory, and Policy 121

Caveats, Puzzles, and Questions 125

APPENDIX A: Survey Design: The 2005 Survey 129

APPENDIX B: The Representativeness of the Panel Sample 131

APPENDIX C: The Supreme Court and the U.S. Presidential Election of 2000: Wounds, Self-Inflicted or Otherwise? 133

James L. Gibson, Gregory A. Caldeira, and Lester Kenyatta Spence The Theory of Institutional Legitimacy 135

Institutional Loyalty in the Aftermath of the Election 139

Views of the Court's Opinion in Bush v. Gore 144

Discussion and Concluding Comments 156

Appendix C.1: Survey Design 158

Appendix C.2: Measurement 159

References 163

Index 175

Über Autor(innen)

James L. Gibson is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University in St. Louis. His books include Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?

Gregory A. Caldeira holds the Ann and Darrell Dreher Chair in Political Communication and Policy Thinking at Ohio State University.