Suchergebnisse

A symposium contribution applauds the idea behind the Supreme Court Forecasting Project, maintaining that it goes beyond prediction or a comparison of models to highlight the importance of forecasting by political scientists who tend to be theoretically oriented. It is noted that practicing lawyers place great value on the ability to predict case outcomes but applied political scientists remain outside the mainstream. Prediction is described as only one criterion for judging the quality of explanation alongside an explanation's elegance, frugality, credibility, data fit, & persuasiveness. It is contended that the statistical model is inductive rather than deductive & does not provide an explanation of the Court's actions. Many of the model's errors are likely to result from the failure to include the nuances of particular cases. The importance of this study & its continuation is what it tells us about "estimates of the justices' ideal-points" & about the qualities of both the statistical & the expert model. Other ways of forecasting the future behavior of individuals or institutions are considered. J. Lindroth

I show the intimate connection between the actions of the justices and support for the Supreme Court during one of the most critical periods of U.S. political history, the four months of 1937 during which Franklin D. Roosevelt sought legislation to "pack" the high bench with friendly personnel. Over the period from 3 February through 10 June 1937, the Gallup Poll queried national samples on 18 separate occasions about FDR's plan. These observations constitute the core of my analyses. I demonstrate the crucial influence of judicial behavior and the mass media in shaping public opinion toward the Supreme Court. This research illuminates the dynamics of public support for the justices, contributes to a clearer understanding of an important historical episode, shows the considerable impact of the mass media on public attitudes toward the Court, and adds more evidence on the role of political events in the making of public opinion.

Systematic study of changes in support for the U.S. Supreme Court across time has not been undertaken. Armed with a time series of observations from 1966 through 1984, I provide a description of the ebb and flow of public esteem for the Court. Then I outline and test several plausible propositions about the dynamics of support. Statistical analyses compel the conclusion that apart from a relatively constant core of support, increases in judicial activism, inflation, and solicitude for the rights of the accused decreased confidence in the Court; the events surrounding Watergate and increases in presidential popularity and the public salience of the Court brought about increased popular esteem for the high bench. Previous scholars, based on cross-sections of individuals, have emphasized the public's ignorance of and disinterest in the Supreme Court and judicial policy making. The responsiveness of public support for the Court in the aggregate to political events and shifts in the behavior of the justices stands in stark contrast to the conventional image of United States citizenry as singularly out of touch with and unmoved by the Supreme Court.