Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T23:42:07.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Perceptions of State Court Impartiality and Court Legitimacy in an Era of Partisan Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Corey Barwick  and
Ryan Dawkins Open the ORCID record for Ryan Dawkins [Opens in a new window]
Corey Barwick
Affiliation:
Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN, USA
Ryan Dawkins*
Affiliation:
Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, USA
*
Ryan Dawkins, Department of Political Science, U.S. Air Force Academy, Fairchild Hall, 2345 Fairchild Drive, Colorado Springs, CO, 80840, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do some people evaluate state supreme courts as more legitimate than others? Conventional academic wisdom suggests that people evaluate courts in nonpartisan ways, and that people make a distinction between how they evaluate individual court decisions and how they evaluate the court's legitimacy more broadly. We challenge this idea by arguing that people's partisan identities have a strong influence on how people evaluate the impartiality of courts, just as they do other aspects of the political world. Using original survey experiments, validated by existing observational survey data, we show that people perceive state supreme courts as being more impartial when courts issue decisions that match the ideological preferences of their preferred political party, while court decisions at odds with their party's policy goals diminish people's belief that courts are impartial arbiters of the law. We also show that the effects of citizen perceptions of impartiality erode evaluations of state court legitimacy, which makes them want to limit the independence of judicial institutions.

Keywords

political psychologyjudicial behaviorjudicial politicsideologypublic opinioncourt legitimacypolarizationrule of law
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 54 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bafumi, Joseph, and Shapiro, Robert Y.. 2009. “A New Partisan Voter.” The Journal of Politics 71 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baird, Vanessa A. 2001. “Building Institutional Legitimacy: The Role of Procedural Justice.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (2): 333–354.Google Scholar
Barabas, Jason, and Jerit, Jennifer. 2010. “Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid?” American Political Science Review 104 (2): 226–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Brandon L., and Johnston, Christopher D.. 2013. “On the Ideological Foundations of Supreme Court Legitimacy in the American Public.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (1): 184–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2002. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior 24 (2): 117–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benesh, Sara C. 2006. “Understanding Public Confidence in American Courts.” Journal of Politics 68 (3): 697–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benesh, Sara C., and Howell, Susan E.. 2001. “Confidence in the Courts: A Comparison of Users and Non-Users.” Behavioral Sciences & the Law 19 (2): 199–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Gregory A., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.Com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20 (3): 351–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binder, Sarah A. 2003. Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Black, Duncan. 1948. “On the Rationale of Group Decision Making.” Journal of Political Economy 56:23–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, Jon, and Fleisher, Richard. 2000. Polarized Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam, and Woodruff, Michael J.. 2015. “A Common-Space Measure of State Supreme Court Ideology.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 31 (3): 472–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W. and Cann, Damon M.. 2015. Voters' Verdicts: Citizens, Campaigns, and Institutions in State Supreme Court Elections. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Buhrmester, Michael, Kwang, Tracy, and Gosling, Samuel D.. 2011. “Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 (1): 3–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burden, Barry C., and Hillygus, D. Sunshine. 2009. “Polls and Elections: Opinion Formation, Polarization, and Presidential Reelection.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 39 (3): 619–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A., and Gibson, James L.. 1992. “The Etiology of Public Support for the Supreme Court.” American Journal of Political Science 36 (3): 635–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Cann, Damon M., and Yates, Jeff. 2008. “Homegrown Institutional Legitimacy: Assessing Citizens' Diffuse Support for State Courts.” American Politics Research 36 (2): 297–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cann, Damon M., and Yates, Jeff. 2016. These Estimable Courts: Understanding Public Perceptions of State Judicial Institutions and Legal Policy-Making. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casey, Gregory. 1974. “The Supreme Court and Myth: An Empirical Investigation.” Law & Society Review 8 (3): 385–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citrin, Jack, and Egan, Patrick J.. 2009. “Opinion Leadership, Backlash, and Delegitimation: Supreme Court Rulings and Public Opinion.” Working Paper..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, Scott, Jewell, Ryan M., and Waggoner, Philip D.. 2015. “Are Samples Drawn from Mechanical Turk Valid for Research on Political Ideology?” Research & Politics 2 (4): 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, Tom. 2009. “Popular Constitutionalism, Civic Education, and the Stories We Tell Our Children.” The Yale Law Journal 118 (5): 948–1001.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Durr, Robert H., Martin, Andrew D., and Wolbrecht, Christina. 2000. “Ideological Divergence and Public Support for the Supreme Court.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (4): 768–776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1975. “A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support.” British Journal of Political Science 5 (4): 435–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelson, Jack, Alduncin, Alexander, Krewson, Christopher, Sieja, James A., and Uscinski, Joseph E.. 2017. “The Effect of Conspiratorial Thinking and Motivated Reasoning on Belief in Election Fraud.” Political Research Quarterly 70 (4): 933–946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Lauren. 2017. “The Hostile Media Effect.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication, eds. Kenski, Kate and Jamieson, Kathleen H.. New York: Oxford University Press, 549–564.Google Scholar
Geer, John G. 2008. In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2007. “The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in a Polarized Polity.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4 (3): 507–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2008. “Challenges to the Impartiality of State Supreme Courts: Legitimacy Theory and ‘New-Style’ Judicial Campaigns.” American Political Science Review 102 (1): 59–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2012. Electing Judges: The Surprising Effects of Campaigning on Judicial Legitimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 1992. “Blacks and the United States Supreme Court: Models of Diffuse Support.” Journal of Politics 54 (4): 1120–1145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 2009. Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations: Positivity Theory and the Judgments of the American People. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 2011. “Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?” Law and Society Review 45 (1): 195–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Baird, Vanessa A.. 1998. “On the Legitimacy of National High Courts.” American Political Science Review 92 (2): 343–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Spence, Lester Kenyatta. 2003. “The Supreme Court and the US Presidential Election of 2000: Wounds, Self-Inflicted or Otherwise?” British Journal of Political Science 33 (4): 535–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J.. 2014. “The Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court: Conventional Wisdoms and Recent Challenges Thereto.” Annual Review of Political Science 10:201–219.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J.. 2015. “Is the U.S. Supreme Court's Legitimacy Grounded in Performance Satisfaction and Ideology?” American Journal of Political Science 59 (1): 162–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Matthew E. K., and Windett, Jason H.. 2013. “New Data on State Supreme Court Decisions.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 13 (4): 427–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J. 2009. “Putting Polarization in Perspective.” British Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 413–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J., and Smith, Joseph L.. 2007. “Issue Preferences and Evaluations of the Supreme Court.” Public Opinion Quarterly 71 (1): 40–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbing, John R., and Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Westwood, Sean J.. 2015. “Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (3): 690–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2003. “Partisan Polarization in Presidential Support: The Electoral Connection.” Congress & the Presidency 30 (1): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2006. “The Polls: Polarized Opinion in the States: Partisan Differences in Approval Ratings of Governors, Senators, and George W. Bush.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (4): 732–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2007. “The Public, the President, and the War in Iraq.” In Politics and Polarization: The Presidency of George W. Bush, eds. Edwards, George C. III and King, Desmond. New York: Oxford University Press, 245–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2013. “How the Economy and Partisanship Shaped the 2012 Presidential and Congressional Elections.” Political Science Quarterly 128 (1): 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Christopher D., and Bartels, Brandon L.. 2010. “Sensationalism and Sobriety: Differential Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward American Courts.” Public Opinion Quarterly 74 (2): 260–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Richard. 2006. “Party Identification: Unmoved Mover or Sum of References?” Annual Review of Political Science 9:329–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelleher, Christine A., and Wolak, Jennifer. 2007. “Explaining Public Confidence in the Branches of State Government.” Political Research Quarterly 60 (4): 707–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimball, David C. 2005. “Priming Partisan Evaluations of Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 30 (1): 63–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, Diane M., Thierry, Devos, and Smith, Eliot R.. 2000. “Intergroup Emotions: Explaining Offensive Action Tendencies in an Intergroup Context.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (4): 602–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, Lilliana. 2015. “I Disrespectfully Agree: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (1): 128–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, Lilliana. 2018. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Joanne M., Saunders, Kyle L., and Farhart, Christina E.. 2016. “Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 824–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondak, Jeffery J., and Smithey, Ishiyama. 1997. “The Dynamics of Public Support for the Supreme Court.” Journal of Politics 59 (4): 1114–1142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montanaro, Domenico. 2018. “Here's Just How Little Confidence Americans Have in Political Institutions.” All Things Considered, January 17..Google Scholar
Munro, Geoffrey D., Weih, Carrie, and Tsai, Jeffrey. 2010. “Motivated Suspicion: Asymmetrical Attributions of the Behavior of Political Ingroup and Outgroup Members.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 32 (2): 173–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, Diana C. 2011. Population-Based Survey Experiment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan, and Riefler, Jason. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rahn, Wendy M., and Rudolph, Thomas J.. 2005. “A Tale of Political Trust in American Cities.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (4): 530–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramirez, Mark D. 2009. “The Dynamics of Partisan Conflict on Congressional Approval.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (3): 681–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salamone, Michael F. 2014. “Judicial Consensus and Public Opinion: Conditional Response to Supreme Court Majority Size.” Political Research Quarterly 67 (2): 320–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F., Streb, Matthew, and Wright, Gerald. 2001. “Teams Without Uniforms: The Nonpartisan Ballot in State and Local Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (1): 7–30.Google Scholar
Scheb, John M. II, and Lyons, William. 2000. “The Myth of Legality and Public Evaluation of the Supreme Court.” Social Science Quarterly 81 (4): 928–940.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J.. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steenbergen, Marco R., and Jones, Bradford S.. 2002. “Modeling Multilevel Data Structures.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (1): 218–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, Charles S., and Lodge, Milton. 2006. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (3): 755–769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why People Follow the Law: Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and Compliance. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2001. “The Psychology of Public Dissatisfaction with Government.” Pp. 227–242. In What Is It About Government That Americans Dislike? (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology), eds. Hibbing, John R. and TheissMorse, Elizabeth. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., Boeckmann, Robert J., Smith, Heather J., and Huo, Yuen J.. 1997. Social Justice in a Diverse Society. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Huo, Yuen J.. 2002. Trust in the Law: Encouraging Public Cooperation with the Police and Courts. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Rasinski, Kenneth. 1991. “Procedural Justice, Institutional Legitimacy, and the Acceptance of Unpopular U.S. Supreme Court Decisions: A Reply to Gibson.” Law & Society Review 25 (3): 621–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenzel, James P., Bowler, Shaun, and Lanoue, David J.. 2003. “The Sources of Public Confidence in State Courts: Experience and Institutions.” American Politics Research 31 (2): 191–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Windett, Jason H., Harden, Jeffrey J., and Hall, Matthew E. K.. 2015. “Estimating Dynamic Ideal Points for State Supreme Courts.” Political Analysis 23 (3): 461–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zink, James R., Spriggs, James F. II, and Scott, John T.. 2009. “Courting the Public: The Influence of Decision Attributes on Individuals' Views of Court Opinions.” Journal of Politics 71 (3): 909–925.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Barwick and Dawkins supplementary material

Appendix

Download Barwick and Dawkins supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 621.6 KB