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Popular Influence on Supreme Court Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Helmut Norpoth ,
Jeffrey A. Segal ,
William Mishler  and
Reginald S. Sheehan
Helmut Norpoth
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Jeffrey A. Segal
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
William Mishler
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Reginald S. Sheehan
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

In their 1993 article in this Review, William Mishler and Reginald Sheehan reported evidence of both direct and indirect impacts of public opinion on Supreme Court decisions. Helmut Norpoth and Jeffrey Segal offer a methodological critique and in their own reanalysis of the data find, contrary to Mishler and Sheehan, no evidence for a direct path of influence from public opinion to Court decisions. Instead, they find an abrupt-permanent shift of judicial behavior consistent with an indirect model of influence whereby popularly elected presidents, through new appointments, affect the ideological complexion of the Court. In response, Mishler and Sheehan defend the direct public opinion linkage originally noted, at both individual and aggregate level; respond to the methodological critique; and offer further statistical analysis to support the aggregate linkages.

Type
Controversy
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 711 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

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