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What Can We Learn About the Ideology of the NewestSupreme Court Justices?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2011

Stephen A. Jessee  and
Alexander M. Tahk
Stephen A. Jessee
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Alexander M. Tahk
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Abstract

In this article, we present a principled method for updatingestimates of the ideology of Supreme Court justices based on eachnew vote they cast. We apply this method to the ideologicalpositions of the newly appointed members of the Court: John Roberts,Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor. This approach allows us to gainnot only an estimate of justices' ideologies but also a greaterunderstanding of the level of uncertainty we should have about thesevalues, including how much we can learn about a new justice's viewsafter he or she has cast a given number of votes on the Court.

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Features
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 524 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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