thesis on public opinion

2024 Theses Doctoral

Essays on Media and Public Opinion in State and Local Politics

Auslen, Michael Edward

This dissertation explores the roles that the news media and public opinion play in shaping policymaking in American state and local governments, drawing on extensive archives of local newspaper transcripts, media market and circulation data, outputs of the policymaking process in states and municipalities, and measures of public opinion. In the first paper, I show that media coverage is associated with greater policy responsiveness in state legislatures. When legislators are more likely to be covered by local newspapers and television news broadcasts in their districts, they are better at reflecting constituent preferences in roll-call voting. Defying the seminal theories of electoral accountability, however, I find no evidence that the media affects what the public knows about state politics or how they behave in state legislative elections. Rather, I conjecture that local news affects representation via a more direct, elite-focused “watchdog” mechanism—by informing legislators about public opinion or increasing the perceived costs that politicians face when deciding to cast an unpopular vote. The second paper examines the implications of news organizations’ decisions as to which local governments to invest in covering routinely. Newspapers are more likely to cover politics in larger cities and those with more white and wealthy residents. In cities and towns that the press covers more frequently, I find that local governments spend more per-capita on providing public goods, particularly policing, parks, housing, and public transportation. This suggests that increasing financial pressures on already resource-constrained news outlets may have negative implications for local public goods provision that could exacerbate existing inequalities in American democracy. Finally, in the third paper, I offer a methodological contribution to the measurement of public opinion at subnational geographies. Although the development of Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP) has allowed scholars to more accurately estimate subnational public opinion using national polls, its usefulness has been limited in certain contexts because it generally recovers less accurate estimates from cluster-sampled surveys. I propose two approaches to improve estimation from MRP with cluster-sampled polls. The first is pooling data from multiple surveys to produce a larger sample of clusters. The second is Clustered MRP (CMRP), which extends MRP by modeling opinion using the geographic information included in a survey’s cluster-sampling procedure.

Geographic Areas

• United States
• Political science
• Public opinion
• Government policy
• Local government--Political aspects
• U.S. states--Politics and government

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Shaping public opinion about conflict: The role of mass media in conflict

The following study explores the role of the mass media in conflict, through a case study of the print news media in Chile, a society with deep-rooted political divisions. This study employs Johan Galtung's theories of structural and cultural violence, the social psychological theory of Herbert C. Kelman, the conceptual framework for peace building of John Paul Lederach, the model of media analysis developed by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, and discourse analysis of newspaper articles published at the time of ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte's return to Chile after being released from house arrest in London, England. This analysis demonstrates how the media shapes public opinion about conflict and how that may be used in the conflict resolution process.

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• Humanitarian disasters, conflict and peacebuilding
• Media studies

U.S. Supreme Court v. American public opinion: the verdict is in

Q&A with Maya Sen: Research survey shows nation’s highest court to be closely aligned to views of American public on major issues decided this year

In May, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of Public Policy Maya Sen, Neil Malhotra of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and Stephen Jessee of the University of Texas at Austin, published the findings of their new research collaboration called SCOTUSPoll . They surveyed opinions of 2,000 Americans on the issues the court was taking up, and they reported the results as the court’s decisions were unfolding.

When the court ruled last week in the final big decision of this year’s term that President Trump did not have a blanket right to withhold his financial records from prosecutors, the New York Times cited SCOTUSPoll in a front-page graphic putting the decision in the context of public opinion. The researchers also have drawn coverage from the Washington Post , FiveThirtyEight , and other publications.

Maya Sen is a political scientist who writes on issues involving the political economy of U.S. race relations, law and politics, and statistical methods. Her latest book, Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics, won the 2019 William H. Riker Prize for best book in political economy. Her next book, on how American courts become politicized, is being published by Cambridge University Press later this year.

Q: What prompted you to undertake this project?

We know a lot about what people think of decisions made by the president and by Congress. In fact, surveys ask about just about everything President Trump does, from his handling of COVID-19 to his latest inflammatory tweet. But we know fairly little about whether people agree with how the Supreme Court is doing its job. What we do know is that people are broadly supportive of the court and believe in its “legitimacy”—that is, that Supreme Court rulings should be respected and followed. But we don’t know that much about whether people actually agree with the case outcomes themselves.

To be frank, it’s surprising that we know so little. The court is co-equal to Congress and the presidency, and it decides cases with high public impact. The topics it addresses range from civil rights to presidential powers to reproductive freedoms. Court opinions reach everything we care about, from how students here at Harvard are admitted to whether and how states like Massachusetts can combat climate change.

Given that, we feel our study, which asks people what they think about issues that the court will rule on, is critical. Is the court in step with public opinion? If not, then how and to what extent does it differ? Will this change in the coming years as newer justices come onto the bench? Our study will enable people to understand these sorts of questions by allowing explicit comparisons between public opinion and the court’s rulings.

Q: Why is it important to know what the public thinks about issues before the U.S. Supreme Court? Shouldn’t the highest court be independent of what the public thinks?

The U.S. Supreme Court is an institution that is fairly insulated from public opinion—and with good reason. The framers of the U.S. Constitution understood that certain things—the protection of minority rights, for example—should never be subject to the whims of public sentiment. So, it was very important for the framers to establish an independent judiciary, headed in our system of government by the Supreme Court.

Even so, understanding whether and how the Supreme Court reflects public thinking is important. We know where our current president and our elected representatives fall on these issues. So, shouldn’t we know the same about the justices?

We hope that our research will provide citizens a simple tool to understand and evaluate how close or removed the justices are from the public on these issues.

We also think that this research could, over time, help inform what candidates and platforms Americans back. Research by other scholars has shown that citizens cast votes for their senators based in part on how those senators vote on U.S. Supreme Court confirmations.  The same thing is true of the president. We hope our research will help equip citizens to make better, more informed choices.

Q: Broadly, it seems the court’s rulings were in line with public opinion on most of these issues. Did you expect that, and is that consistent with what we know about the court’s alignment with public views in past years? Is this court the same as its predecessors in that sense?

Our study showed that most Americans supported the liberal side in the key cases before the court this term. This included important cases involving LGBTQ rights, abortion access, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and presidential powers (specifically President Trump’s tax returns). In only a few cases—for example, a religious scholarships case—did the majority of people in our study support the conservative side.

So, what did we expect from this court? With Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018 and with the subsequent confirmation of conservative Brett Kavanaugh, the court’s ideological center of gravity—what scholars call the “ideological median”—has shifted to the right. Now, instead of a more center-right judge like Anthony Kennedy, we have a solid conservative—Chief Justice John Roberts—holding the court’s powerful central position.

Given that Roberts is now the person most likely to cast a pivotal fifth vote, most court watchers expected the court to shift to the right across key issues. But that did not happen this year. Instead, the court ruled in favor of the liberal position across key cases, including the cases involving LGBTQ rights, abortion access, DACA, and presidential powers.

Like other court watchers, we were surprised. After all, Roberts was the key swing vote on many of these cases, and he’s hardly liberal.

However, our study showed that the court’s position in every major case this term was exactly in line with public opinion . This could provide helpful context for the otherwise surprising rulings. For example, in Bostock v. Clayton County —the court’s LGBTQ-workers’ rights case—our data showed that 83 percent of Americans believed that it should be illegal to terminate a worker because of LGBT status. The number was still high—74 percent--looking only at the Republicans in the study.

In this case, the court ruled 6-3 in favor of LGBTQ rights. This was surprising to scholars, given the court’s ideological make-up. But with the deeper political context showing very overwhelming support for LGBT rights among members of the public, it is perhaps less surprising. We hope to explore this close connection between public sentiment and the court’s rulings in future work.

Q: With the benefit of knowing the outcomes, how do you measure the court’s legitimacy now after all these rulings have been made?

One thing that’s very exciting about doing research in real time is that your hypotheses are proved or disproved as you and the rest of the world are watching. We originally thought that the court would be out of step with public opinion, since our data showed that most people preferred the liberal side in each major case (with only a few exceptions) and we knew that the court was leaning in a conservative direction—especially with the new justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Much to our surprise, we saw that the court sided with the liberal position in a lot of these really important cases, with Roberts frequently siding with the court’s four liberal justices.

For us, the biggest surprise wasn’t any particular case, but the fact that public opinion was highly predictive of how the court actually ruled. In case and after case, our study predicted the court’s ruling (even though this wasn’t the explicit aim of our work). Our survey even predicted some of the more conservative rulings—for example, the court’s ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that states cannot prevent state-sponsored scholarships from being used at religious institutions. Our study showed that this was one of the few cases where a majority of Americans—63 percent--supported the conservative position that eventually won out at the Supreme Court.

A big question is why we saw this close relationship between public opinion and the court’s rulings. Will this relationship hold in future years? We hope to conduct this survey every year moving forward, so we will soon know the answer. Is Roberts—who was the swing vote on a lot of these cases—particularly sensitive to the public mood? Possibly. Was the Trump administration’s position on certain cases particularly weak? Also possibly.

Q: How do you intend to use this research project in your teaching? What lessons would you want students to take away from this work?

At HKS, I teach courses on statistics, inequality, and judicial processes, and this research has a home in each of those courses.

This is brand-new research and, to our knowledge, nobody has asked the general public how they feel about the exact issues before the court. So, first, we hope that this research illustrates the importance of doing timely descriptive work. Second, we hope this work invites students to think outside the box in terms of democratic representation and accountability. Just because an institution is purposefully insulated from public opinion doesn’t mean that we shouldn't examine and question how representative it is. Third, we think that this work is highly relevant to policy and could help us think through potential avenues of policymaking. For example, our research shows that the public is highly supportive of including LGBTQ individuals within the scope of protections against discrimination on the “basis of sex.” This could be a productive venue for policymakers moving forward.

Overall, we hope that we push students toward asking big, important questions, and to not hesitate to move quickly.

Banner photo by Phillip Nelson; portrait by Martha Stewart

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Barnes, Latarcia R. "Public opinions of the courts| Does mass media influence public opinion?" Thesis, Capella University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3614483.

The general public knows very little about the criminal justice system overall, which can result in an assorted, often negative, opinions of the criminal justice system. The public's confidence in the criminal justice system is imperative to the operation of the criminal justice system. Our criminal justice system relies on the participation from the community in order to work. One speculation as to why the public has a less than favorable opinion of the criminal justice system is that the system is viewed a mystery. The public has no idea how each component of the criminal justice system works because the majority of the public has had no direct contact with the criminal justice system. Most information obtained about the criminal justice system, the public gathered from what they hear and see from the media or from other people. Using secondary data from a national survey, this dissertation analyzed mass media, specifically TV news, newspapers, and TV judge programs, to determine these variables have an influence on the relationship of the courts and public opinion in the United States. This dissertation can be viewed as ground zero in terms of how the media began to influence the public's opinion of the criminal justice system, especially the court component. For this study, a quantitative approach using a descriptive survey design was used. It was determined that the respondents were not as influenced by mass media as anticipated. The findings of this study were more consistent with the international literature than domestic literature on this topic. This dissertation offers a better understanding of the connection between mass media, even without the more modern aspects of the media such as the internet, and the public's views of the courts. This dissertation presents valuable information for satisfaction with the courts and attitude toward the courts that has not been seen in the current literature on this subject. In conclusion, recommendations were provided offered to further advance the research in this area.

Vaughn, Justin Scott. "Presidential responsiveness to public opinion." [College Station, Tex. : Texas A&M University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2587.

Klyve, Christoffer Ringnes. "Public opinion and international development." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=29407.

Koch, Nadine S. "Perceptions of public opinion polls /." The Ohio State University, 1985. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487261919112441.

Cannon, Bart Joseph. "Public Opinion and State Policy." W&M ScholarWorks, 1991. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625688.

Wyckoff, Christopher A. "The constraining dynamics of public opinion." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Naval Postgraduate School, 2006. http://bosun.nps.edu/uhtbin/hyperion.exe/06Dec%5FWyckoff.pdf.

Mayer, Michael Allan. "Canadian public opinion and free trade." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28161.

Stecula, Dominik. "Public opinion and democracy in Poland." Thesis, McGill University, 2012. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=110693.

Urity, Mounica. "DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE: EDUCATION AND PUBLIC OPINION." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/613754.

Hoffman, Lindsay Helene. "Public opinion in context a multilevel model of media effects on perceptions of public opinion and political behavior /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1186670126.

VISCONTI, FRANCESCO. "The legislative representation of public opinion priorities. A study of Italian parties, governments, and public opinion policy agendas." Doctoral thesis, Università di Siena, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11365/1012348.

Cover, Oliver. "Political corruption, public opinion and citizens' behaviour." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e2c48400-e400-46b2-814a-a68b998179a6.

Sakkas, John. "British public opinion and Greece, 1944-1949." Thesis, University of Hull, 1992. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:11246.

Mobbs, Timothy Robert Donald Hardingham. "Public opinion, social stability and local democracy." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.293336.

Baderin, Alice. "Political theory, public opinion and real politics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7fa3ccbe-1a70-4d6f-95ce-54146da83af1.

Saksena, Mita. "Framing Infectious Diseases and U.S. Public Opinion." FIU Digital Commons, 2011. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/516.

Merola, Vittorio E. "Essays on Economic Inequality and Public Opinion." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1468944429.

Cicek, Edvin. "Framing the public opinion on military conflict." Thesis, Försvarshögskolan, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-10140.

Anthony, Brian S. "On public opinion in time of war." Thesis, Monterey, California : Naval Postgraduate School, 2009. http://edocs.nps.edu/npspubs/scholarly/theses/2009/Dec/09Dec%5FAnthony.pdf.

Vrânceanu, Alina. "Political parties' position and public opinion on immigration." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/666993.

Abughazzi, Aysha. "Translation and public opinion: The press in Jordan." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/29277.

Grossback, Lawrence James. "Public opinion and the process of democratic responsiveness /." Diss., ON-CAMPUS Access For University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Click on "Connect to Digital Dissertations", 2000. http://www.lib.umn.edu/articles/proquest.phtml.

Webb, Christina Michelle. "Green Building: Public Opinion, Semantics, and Heuristic Processing." Master's thesis, University of Central Florida, 2005. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/3176.

Craik, David. "US presidents and public opinion : the Carter presidency." Thesis, Keele University, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.417844.

CARVALHO, DANIEL RIBEIRO DE SOUZA. "ACCESS TO INFORMATION, PUBLIC OPINION AND POLITICAL INCENTIVES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2004. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=5200@1.

Swart, Charl. "Public opinion on land reform in South Africa." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/4377.

Gwon, Misook. "Measuring and Understanding Public Opinion on Human Evolution." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1353342586.

JABBARI, BEHZAD J. "EXPERIMENTS IN PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1123627488.

Akor, Ambrose. "The media, public opinion and British foreign policy." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2011. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-media-public-opinion-and-british-foreign-policy(39da87e2-fc03-45df-9481-b278070f42c2).html.

Moser, Celeste Laurana. "Public opinion and public engagement with genetically modified foods : a qualitative study." PDXScholar, 2010. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4279.

Gabler, Melissa J. "Opinion consistency revisited, the new paradigm of public opinion and its implications for democratic governance." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0025/MQ40413.pdf.

Boyadjian, Julien. "Analyser les opinions politiques sur internet : Enjeux théoriques et défis méthodologiques." Thesis, Montpellier 1, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014MON10016.

Drake, Jessica Noelle-Neumann Elisabeth. "Spiral of silence, public opinion and the Iraq War : factors influencing one's willingness to express their opinion /." Online version of thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/8637.

Ragland, Ruth Ann Vaughan. "Linkages between the Texas Supreme Court and Public Opinion." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1995. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278024/.

Liegel, Roy 1940. "Paradigms of experiencing the new in Pacific voyages and explorations." Monash University, German Studies, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/9156.

Schroeder, Janice Elaine. "Reproducing literary subjectivities, victorian life-writing and public opinion." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/mq22553.pdf.

Dugan, Joni Mari. "Assessing public opinion toward homelessness in the United States." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2007. https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=5076.

Brooke, Rebecca. "Causal explanations, media effects, and public opinion on obesity." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28259.

Banister, Julia Alyson. "Military masculinity and public opinion in the eighteenth century." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.538957.

Fast, Stewart. "Public Opinion and Communicative Action Around Renewable Energy Projects." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/24297.

Thompson, James. "The idea of 'public opinion' in Britain 1870-1914." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.621645.

Mpule, Keneilwe P. "Traditional leadership, democratic authority and public opinion in Botswana." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11447.

Sporn, Henry Carleton University Dissertation Journalism. "Public opinion; the case for a quality Ottawa daily." Ottawa, 1992.

Downey, Keith Michael. "What factors impact public opinion on federal government spending?" Connect to Electronic Thesis (CONTENTdm), 2009. http://worldcat.org/oclc/449219919/viewonline.

Van, Slyke Shanna. "Social identification and public opinion on white-collar crime." Tallahassee, Florida : Florida State University, 2009. http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-10272009-160114/.

Gracey, Kellen J. "The macro polity and public opinion in religious context." Diss., University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5762.

Sandeen, Peggy Jo Ann. "Public Opinion and the Oregon Death with Dignity Act." PDXScholar, 2013. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1015.

Bly, Theresa. "Impact of public perception on US national policy : a study of media influence in military and government decision making /." Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2002. http://library.nps.navy.mil/uhtbin/hyperion-image/02sep%5FBly.pdf.

Kobes, Shannon K. "Analysis of victim and perpetrator blame in incident reports depicting sexual assault." Virtual Press, 2005. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1318619.

Cato, John Carson. "Environmental public policy: An analysis of public opinion and environmental legislation in North Carolina." ScholarWorks, 1995. http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dilley/2.

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AP®︎/College US Government and Politics

Course: ap®︎/college us government and politics   >   unit 4.

• Measuring public opinion
• Scientific polling introduction

Measuring public opinion: lesson overview

What is public opinion, and why do political scientists measure it?

Types of polls, review questions.

• Rita Skeeter selected 10 students from two of the four houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, to gauge opinions about the best teacher at the school. Six of the students she surveyed responded that Professor McGonagall was the best teacher, three responded that Professor Flitwick was the best teacher, and one responded that Professor Snape was the best teacher. Rita published the results of her survey in the Daily Prophet with the headline “McGonagall Voted Best Teacher at Hogwarts.”
• Arjun, Caitlyn, and Olivia are all running for class president. On election day, students from the journalism club stationed themselves outside of the voting booth and conducted an exit poll. At the end of the school day, they tallied 321 votes for Caitlyn, 297 votes for Olivia, and 266 votes for Arjun. The next day, after counting the votes, the principal announced that Olivia had won the election with 375 votes.

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Expert Commentary

The Supreme Court, public opinion and decision-making: Research roundup

2013 review of scholarly studies that examine the intersection between public opinion and rulings of the Supreme Court.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by John Wihbey, The Journalist's Resource June 28, 2013

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/research-roundup-supreme-court-public-opinion/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

The decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are seldom without controversy, and American history has seen fierce public debate over the Court’s proper role in the democracy. With lifetime tenure, justices are in principle immune from the vagaries of public opinion. But new issues inevitably come to the Court because of emerging trends in society, and evolving norms and values have always been part of these cases.

As the Court continues to weigh momentous cases on important social issues, the history of past decisions, such as Roe v. Wade , continue to be contemplated by legal scholars. Did the Court move too “fast”? How should decisions on evolving social issues be adjudicated in light of prevailing views in society?

In 2012, the landmark ruling on the Affordable Care Act was handed down . Many legal scholars noted that the Court’s standing with the public and perceived legitimacy was part of the calculus, as 2012 polling data suggested that the Court’s traditionally high approval ratings had declined considerably. In advance of the ruling, the American people were divided over how the Court should handle the issue.

Scholars are now trying to make sense of the Court’s 2013 decisions — on gay marriage, the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and much more — and to see how public opinion might have affected the legal rulings. Writing at the political science blog “The Monkey Cage,” Erik Voten of Georgetown examines the various academic hypotheses and some of the relevant research literature; he concludes that applying an “attitudinal model” helps explain certain judicial decisions.

For background research perspective on the gay marriage case, see this reading list, compiled by George Washington University political scientist John Sides. Emory University political scientist Tom Clark also notes in a useful recent blog post that “the justices are indeed sensitive to the dynamics of public opinion on important issues in society. The Court’s responsiveness to public opinion is something that political scientists have long studied.”

The following reports and studies can help frame these issues:

“Public (Mis)Perceptions of Supreme Court Ideology: A Method for Directly Comparing Citizens and Justices” Jessee, Stephen; Malhotra, Neil. Public Opinion Quarterly , 2013, Vol. 77, No. 2, 619-634. doi: 10.1093/poq/nft017.

Abstract: “Do people accurately perceive the Supreme Court’s ideology in relation to their own positions? Which types of people are most likely to misperceive? Answering these questions is important for understanding the basis of public support for the Supreme Court. To do so requires placing the public and the Supreme Court on a common ideological scale. This study represents the first attempt to do so. We ask respondents how they would have voted on a set of cases recently decided by the Court, meaning that we can generate a comparable set of ideal points for both masses and elites in a common space. We find that the Court is generally representative of mass opinion and that most citizens have accurate perceptions of the Court. However, we also find that people are substantially more likely to misperceive the Court as being too liberal than too conservative.”

“The Swing Justice” Enns, Peter K.; Wohlfarth, Patrick C. Journal of Politics , August 2013, 1-19. doi: 10.1017/S0022381613001035.

Abstract: “In the Supreme Court’s most closely divided cases, one pivotal justice can determine the outcome. Given this fact, judicial scholars have paid substantial attention to the swing justice. This article makes two theoretical contributions to the study of the swing justice and this justice’s resulting influence on case outcomes. First, we show that in a substantial number of cases, the justice that casts the pivotal vote is not the median justice on the Court. Second, we argue that the swing justice will typically rely less on attitudinal considerations and more on strategic and legal considerations than the other justices on the Court. The analysis suggests that even among the Court’s most closely divided decisions, which are typically thought to reflect the Court’s most ideologically driven outcomes, the pivotal swing vote is significantly less likely to reflect attitudinal predispositions and more likely to reflect strategic considerations, such as the public’s preferences, and case-specific considerations such as the position advocated by the Solicitor General. The theory and findings suggest that a failure to consider the unique behavior of a pivotal actor—whether on the Supreme Court or any other decision-making body—can lead to incorrect conclusions about the determinants of policy outputs.”

“On the Ideological Foundations of Supreme Court Legitimacy in the American Public” Bartels, Brandon L.; Johnston, Christopher D. American Journal of Political Science , January 2013, Vol. 57, Issue 1, 184–199.

Abstract: “Conventional wisdom says that individuals’ ideological preferences do not influence Supreme Court legitimacy orientations. Most work is based on the assumption that the contemporary Court is objectively conservative in its policymaking, meaning that ideological disagreement should come from liberals and agreement from conservatives. Our nuanced look at the Court’s policymaking suggests rational bases for perceiving the Court’s contemporary policymaking as conservative, moderate, and even liberal. We argue that subjective ideological disagreement—incongruence between one’s ideological preferences and one’s perception of the Court’s ideological tenor—must be accounted for when explaining legitimacy. Analysis of a national survey shows that subjective ideological disagreement exhibits a potent, deleterious impact on legitimacy. Ideology exhibits sensible connections to legitimacy depending on how people perceive the Court’s ideological tenor. Results from a survey experiment support our posited mechanism. Our work has implications for the public’s view of the Court as a ‘political’ institution.”

“Supreme Court’s Favorable Rating Still at Historic Low” Dimock, Michael; Doherty, Carroll; Kiley, Jocelyn. Pew Research Center, March 2013.

Findings: “A national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 13-17 among 1,501 adults, finds that 52% view the court favorably, while 31% view it unfavorably. Those ratings have changed only modestly since last July, shortly after the court’s ruling to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans’ views of the court, which tumbled 18 points following the court’s ruling on the health care law, have rebounded somewhat in the current survey. Nearly half of Republicans (47%) have a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, up from 38% last July, but still lower than the 56% who viewed the court positively prior to its decision on the health care law. By contrast, Democrats’ impressions of the court have slipped since last July, from 64% to 56%.”

“The Supreme Court’s New Source of Legitimacy” Bassok, Or. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law , Vol. 16, 2013.

Abstract: “In recent decades, the Supreme Court has lost its ability to base its legitimacy solely on its legal expertise yet it has gained public support as a new source to legitimize its authority. Due to growing public understanding that legal expertise does not award the Court with determinate answers, the Court has partly lost expertise as a source of legitimacy. The idea that judges decide salient cases based on their political preferences has become part of common sense and has eroded the Court’s image as an expert in the public mind. On the other hand, as a result of the invention of scientific public opinion polls and their current centrality in the public mind, the Court has now available a new source of legitimacy. Thanks to public opinion polls that measure public support for the Court, the Court for the first time in its history, has now an independent and public metric demonstrating its public support. The monopoly elected institutions had on claiming to hold public mandate has been broken. As a result of these changes as well as the lessons the Court took from the Lochner decisional line and Brown, an important shift in the political balance of power and subsequently in the Rehnquist Court’s understanding of its own sources of legitimacy occurred.”

“How Public Opinion Constrains the U.S. Supreme Court” Casillas, Christopher J.; Enns, Peter K.; Wohlfarth, Patrick C. American Journal of Political Science , October 2010. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00485.x.

Abstract: “Although scholars increasingly acknowledge a contemporaneous relationship between public opinion and Supreme Court decisions, debate continues as to why this relationship exists. Does public opinion directly influence decisions or do justices simply respond to the same social forces that simultaneously shape the public mood? To answer this question, we first develop a strategy to control for the justices’ attitudinal change that stems from the social forces that influence public opinion. We then propose a theoretical argument that predicts strategic justices should be mindful of public opinion even in cases when the public is unlikely to be aware of the Court’s activities. The results suggest that the influence of public opinion on Supreme Court decisions is real, substantively important, and most pronounced in nonsalient cases. ”

“Perceptions of Politicization and Public Preferences Toward the Supreme Court” Bartels, Brandon L.; Johnston, Christopher D. Public Opinion Quarterly , September 2011. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfr032.

Abstract: “To what extent should Supreme Court justices be appointed on the basis of ideology and politics as opposed to qualifications and experience only? We examine how Americans’ preferences regarding this question are influenced by their perceptions of the Court as politicized in how it goes about its work. From a ‘backlash’ perspective, such perceptions should diminish preferences for a political appointment process, while a ‘political reinforcement’ perspective suggests an enhancement effect. National survey data show that large segments of the public perceive of the Court in political terms and prefer that justices be chosen on political and ideological bases. Empirical evidence refutes the backlash hypothesis and supports the political reinforcement hypothesis; the more individuals perceive the Court in politicized terms, the greater their preferences for a political appointment process. Those who view the Court as highly politicized do not differentiate the Court from the explicitly political branches and therefore prefer that justices be chosen on political and ideological grounds. The results have implications for the public’s perceptions and expectations of the Court as a ‘political’ institution.”

‘‘’An Appeal to the People’: Public Opinion and Congressional Support for the Supreme Court” Ura, Joseph Daniel; Wohlfarth, Patrick C. The Journal of Politics , 2010. doi: 10.1017/S0022381610000459.

Abstract: “Scholars often assert that public support for judicial authority induces Congress to grant resources and discretion to the Supreme Court. However, the theory of competing public agency embraced by the Constitution suggests that public support for courts cannot, by itself, explain congressional support for judicial authority. Instead, the logic of the separation of powers system indicates that legislative support for the institutional capacity of courts will be a function of public confidence in the legislature as well as evaluations of the judiciary. We test this theory, finding that public confidence in both Congress and the Court significantly affect congressional support for the Supreme Court, controlling for the ideological distance between the Court and Congress as well as the Court’s workload. The results offer a more refined and complex view of the role of public sentiment in balancing institutional power in American politics.”

“The Separation of Powers, Court Curbing, and Judicial Legitimacy” Clark, Tom S. American Journal of Political Science , October 2009, Vol. 53, Issue 3. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00411.x.

Abstract: “A major focus of judicial politics research has been the extent to which ideological divergence between the Court and Congress can explain variation in Supreme Court decision making. However, conflicting theoretical and empirical findings have given rise to a significant discrepancy in the scholarship. Building on evidence from interviews with Supreme Court justices and former law clerks, I develop a formal model of judicial-congressional relations that incorporates judicial preferences for institutional legitimacy and the role of public opinion in congressional hostility towards the Supreme Court. An original dataset identifying all Court-curbing legislation proposed between 1877 and 2006 is then used to assess the influence of congressional hostility on the Court’s use of judicial review. The evidence indicates that public discontent with the Court, as mediated through congressional hostility, creates an incentive for the Court to exercise self-restraint. When Congress is hostile, the Court uses judicial review to invalidate Acts of Congress less frequently than when Congress is not hostile towards the Court.”

“The Supreme Court in American Democracy: Unraveling the Linkages between Public Opinion and Judicial Decision Making” Blackstone, Bethany; Vining Jr., Richard L. Journal of Politics , April 2008, Vol. 70, No. 2.

Abstract: “There is wide scholarly agreement that the frequent replacement of justices has kept the Supreme Court generally attuned to public opinion. Recent research indicates that, in addition to this indirect effect, Supreme Court justices respond directly to changes in public opinion. We explore the two causal pathways suggested to link public opinion directly to the behavior of justices and the implications of the nature and strength of these linkages for current debates concerning Supreme Court tenure. The recent increase in the stability of Court membership has raised questions about the continued efficacy of the replacement mechanism and renewed debates over mechanisms to limit judicial tenure. Our analysis provides little evidence that justices respond strategically to public opinion but provides partial support for the idea that justices’ preferences shift in response to the same social forces that shape the opinions of the general public. Our analysis offers preliminary evidence that — even in the absence of membership change — public opinion may provide a mechanism by which the preferences of the Court can be aligned with those of the public.”

“The Supreme Court’s Many Median Justices” Lauderdale, Benjamin E.; Clark, Tom S. American Political Science Review , November 2012, Vol. 106, Issue 4. doi: 10.1017/S0003055412000469.

Abstract: “One-dimensional spatial models have come to inform much theorizing and research on the U.S. Supreme Court. However, we argue that judicial preferences vary considerably across areas of the law, and that limitations in our ability to measure those preferences have constrained the set of questions scholars pursue. We introduce a new approach, which makes use of information about substantive similarity among cases, to estimate judicial preferences that vary across substantive legal issues and over time. We show that a model allowing preferences to vary over substantive issues as well as over time is a significantly better predictor of judicial behavior than one that only allows preferences to vary over time. We find that judicial preferences are not reducible to simple left-right ideology and, as a consequence, there is substantial variation in the identity of the median justice across areas of the law during all periods of the modern court. These results suggest a need to reconsider empirical and theoretical research that hinges on the existence of a single pivotal median justice.”

“Public Opinion and Senate Confirmation of Supreme Court Nominees” Kastellec, Jonathan P.; Lax, Jeffrey R.; Phillips, Justin. Journal of Politics , July 2010, Vol. 72, No. 3, 767-784. doi: 10.1017/S0022381610000150.

Abstract: “Does public opinion influence Supreme Court confirmation politics? We present the first direct evidence that state-level public opinion on whether a particular Supreme Court nominee should be confirmed affects the roll-call votes of senators. Using national polls and applying recent advances in opinion estimation, we produce state-of-the-art estimates of public support for the confirmation of 10 recent Supreme Court nominees in all 50 states. We find that greater home-state public support does significantly and strikingly increase the probability that a senator will vote to approve a nominee, even controlling for other predictors of roll-call voting. These results establish a systematic and powerful link between constituency opinion and voting on Supreme Court nominees. We connect this finding to larger debates on the role of majoritarianism and representation.”

“Reassessing the Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on Public Opinion: Gay Civil Rights Cases” Stoutenborough, James W.; Haider-Markel,  Donald P.; Allen, Mahalley D. Political Research Quarterly , September 2006, Vol. 59, No. 3.

Abstract: “The theoretical and empirical debate over the ability of the U.S. Supreme Court to influence public opinion through its decisions is far from settled. Scholars have examined the question using a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence, but there is no theoretical consensus, nor are the empirical studies without methodological weaknesses. We enter this debate in an attempt to bring some clarity to the theoretical approaches, overcome some of the methodological shortcomings, and bring a yet unstudied issue area, Court decisions on gay civil rights, under scrutiny. We argue that the ability of Court decisions to influence public opinion is a function of the salience of the issue, the political context, and case specific factors at the aggregate level. At the individual level these factors are also relevant, but citizen characteristics must also be taken into consideration. Our analysis of aggregate level and individual level opinion does indeed suggest that Court decisions can influence public opinion. However, the ability of Court decisions to influence public opinion is conditional. Our findings lend support to the legitimation hypothesis and the structural effects model. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings and suggestions for future research.”

“Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion and Abortion” Franklin, Charles H.; Kosaki, Liane C. American Political Science Review , September 1989, Vol. 83, No. 3.

Abstract: “The United States Supreme Court has a historical role as a ‘republican schoolmaster,’ inculcating virtues in the citizenry. The role as teacher to the republic also serves the interests of the Court. As the ‘weakest branch,’ the Supreme Court needs public support if its decisions are to be effective. We investigate the Court’s ability to win popular support for its rulings, specifically in the case of Roe v. Wade. The analysis shows that the Court’s decision did affect public attitudes but not as previous work would predict. While support for abortions to protect health increased as a result of the Court’s decision, the public became more polarized over ‘discretionary’ abortions. The puzzle is what process can account for these disparate reactions. We develop a theory resting on interpersonal influences to explain these results, arguing that the social interpretation of events drives the differing outcomes. This theory is then tested against a purely psychological alternative. The closing discussion considers how these results can be extended to the general problem of public decisions and popular responses, including presidential actions and the influence of the media.”

Keywords: law, health care reform, research roundup, partisan divide

About The Author

John Wihbey