Suchergebnisse

The Panel on Public Law is one of a number of such organizations which came into being under the auspices of the Committee on Research of the American Political Science Association. Its purpose is to survey research in public law as now conducted and to give such guidance to methods and areas of future research as is possible and as the members think desirable. Since the date of its organization in the summer of 1942, the Panel, with a somewhat fluctuating membership, has exchanged ideas through extensive correspondence. On September 9–10, 1944, it met in Washington for more detailed discussion and sharing of opinions. It met again in Philadelphia on March 29, 1946, pursuant to the program of the annual meeting of the Association. The range of opinions and attitudes has proved very wide. It reflects a high degree of individualism in the field—the result, no doubt, of differences of initial training and experience and habit of mind, and also, perhaps, of the comparative isolation one from another which characterizes the working conditions of the representatives of the field. The correspondence and the oral discussions already held have dealt with too many problems to make possible a report of widespread agreement.

During the past half dozen years or so, beginning in the mid-1950's, a somewhat revolutionary change has been taking place in the research orientation of the political science profession toward what traditionally has been called the study of public law. Typical of the metamorphosis now in process are the recent publication of a volume of research studies in judicial behavior in a yearbook series dedicated to the analysis of political behavior from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural point of view, and the contributions of several political scientists to a law journal which recently devoted an entire issue to a symposium on the prediction and measurement of judicial behavior. Although it would hardly be accurate to say that the new approach is characteristic of anything approaching a majority of the political scientists who are teachers of constitutional law, the judicial process, and allied subjects, it is certainly no exaggeration to state that the bulk of the research on these same subjects, published in political science journals during this period, has been produced by the behavioralists, as they tend to be called. The purpose of this paper is to summarize this recent research in judicial behavior.