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Advisors to Elites
Untangling Their Effect
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2022
Abstract
Because decision making is complicated, political elites seek advice when making decisions, and the ways in which they use that advice has systematic features. But, analyses of decision making among elites usually fail to account for advice. We take advantage of unique information about the advice provided to one set of elites to empirically uncover the effect of advice. Specifically, we examine law clerk recommendations on cert to Justice Blackmun. We find that, even after controlling for known determinants of cert and considering sequential decision making, the advice of a trusted advisor matters greatly.
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- Research Article
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- © 2020 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
Footnotes
The authors thank anonymous reviewers for suggestions that strengthened the article as well as attendees at a long-ago Marquette Law School conference on law clerks (“Judicial Assistants or Junior Judges,” organized by Todd Peppers and Chad Oldfather in spring 2014) that was very informative. All errors of commission or omission that remain are ours.
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