IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v53y2009i1p139-155.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Confirmation Politics and The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination

Author

Listed:
  • James L. Gibson
  • Gregory A. Caldeira

Abstract

Gibson, Caldeira, and Spence (2003a, 2003b, 2005) expound the theory of positivity bias in their analysis of the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of Bush v. Gore. This theory asserts that preexisting institutional loyalty shapes perceptions of and judgments about court decisions and events. In this article, we use the theory of positivity bias to investigate the preferences of Americans regarding the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. More specifically, from the theory of positivity bias, we derive the hypothesis that preferences on the Alito confirmation are shaped by anterior commitments to the Supreme Court. Based on an analysis of a national panel survey, we find that those who have a high level of loyalty toward the Supreme Court rely much more heavily on what we term judiciousness—in contrast to ideology, policy, and partisanship—in forming their opinions on whether to confirm Alito. Thus, institutional loyalty provides a decisive frame through which Americans view the activity of their Supreme Court.

Suggested Citation

  • James L. Gibson & Gregory A. Caldeira, 2009. "Confirmation Politics and The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 139-155, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:53:y:2009:i:1:p:139-155
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00362.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00362.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00362.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gibson, James L. & Caldeira, Gregory A. & Baird, Vanessa A., 1998. "On the Legitimacy of National High Courts," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 343-358, June.
    2. James L. Gibson & Gregory A. Caldeira & Lester Kenyatta Spence, 2003. "Measuring Attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(2), pages 354-367, April.
    3. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    4. Caldeira, Gregory A. & Gibson, James L., 1995. "The Legitimacy of the Court of Justice in the European Union: Models of Institutional Support," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 356-376, June.
    5. Gibson, James L. & Caldeira, Gregory A., 1998. "Changes in the Legitimacy of the European Court of Justice: A Post-Maastricht Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 63-91, January.
    6. Druckman, James N., 2004. "Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(4), pages 671-686, November.
    7. Segal, Jeffrey A. & Cover, Albert D., 1989. "Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 557-565, June.
    8. Gibson, James L. & Caldeira, Gregory A. & Spence, Lester Kenyatta, 2003. "The Supreme Court and the US Presidential Election of 2000: Wounds, Self-Inflicted or Otherwise?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 535-556, October.
    9. Boynton, G. R. & Loewenberg, Gerhard, 1973. "The Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany, 1951–59," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 169-189, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher N. Krewson & Jean R. Schroedel, 2020. "Public Views of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Aftermath of the Kavanaugh Confirmation," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1430-1441, July.
    2. von Haldenwang, Christian, 2016. "Measuring legitimacy: new trends, old shortcomings?," IDOS Discussion Papers 18/2016, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    3. Alrababah, Ala & Casalis, Marine & Masterson, Daniel & Hangartner, Dominik & Wehrli, & Weinstein, Jeremy, 2023. "Reducing Attrition in Phone-based Panel Surveys: A Web Application to Facilitate Best Practices and Semi-Automate Survey Workflow," OSF Preprints gyz3h, Center for Open Science.
    4. Christopher N. Krewson & Jean R. Schroedel, 2023. "Modern judicial confirmation hearings and institutional support for the Supreme Court," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(3), pages 364-369, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tom S. Clark, 2009. "The Separation of Powers, Court Curbing, and Judicial Legitimacy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 971-989, October.
    2. James R. Rogers & Joseph Daniel Ura, 2020. "A majoritarian basis for judicial countermajoritarianism," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 435-459, July.
    3. Clifford J. Carrubba, 2003. "The European Court of Justice, Democracy, and Enlargement," European Union Politics, , vol. 4(1), pages 75-100, March.
    4. Juan A. Mayoral, 2017. "In the CJEU Judges Trust: A New Approach in the Judicial Construction of Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 551-568, May.
    5. James L. Gibson*, 2007. "“Truth” And “Reconciliation” As Social Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 81(2), pages 257-281, April.
    6. Nathan T. Carrington & Logan Strother, 2023. "Plugging the pipe? Evaluating the (null) effects of leaks on Supreme Court legitimacy," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), pages 669-712, September.
    7. Jonas Tallberg & Michael Zürn, 2019. "The legitimacy and legitimation of international organizations: introduction and framework," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 581-606, December.
    8. Scott Radnitz, 2018. "Historical narratives and post-conflict reconciliation: An experiment in Azerbaijan," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 154-174, March.
    9. James L. Gibson, 2007. "The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in a Polarized Polity," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(3), pages 507-538, November.
    10. Dimitri Landa & Adam Meirowitz, 2009. "Game Theory, Information, and Deliberative Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 427-444, April.
    11. Kayla S. Canelo, 2022. "Citations to Interest Groups and Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 189-222, March.
    12. Michael MacKuen & Jennifer Wolak & Luke Keele & George E. Marcus, 2010. "Civic Engagements: Resolute Partisanship or Reflective Deliberation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 440-458, April.
    13. Marx, Paul & Schumacher, Gijs, 2014. "The Effect of Economic Change and Elite Framing on Economic Preferences: A Survey Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 7979, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Stadelmann-Steffen, Isabelle, 2019. "Bad news is bad news: Information effects and citizens’ socio-political acceptance of new technologies of electricity transmission," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 531-545.
    15. Tetsuro Kobayashi & Fumiaki Taka & Takahisa Suzuki, 2021. "Can “Googling” correct misbelief? Cognitive and affective consequences of online search," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-16, September.
    16. Joseph A Hamm & Corwin Smidt & Roger C Mayer, 2019. "Understanding the psychological nature and mechanisms of political trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, May.
    17. Claes H. de Vreese & Hajo G. Boomgaarden, 2005. "Projecting EU Referendums," European Union Politics, , vol. 6(1), pages 59-82, March.
    18. Karl Kaltenthaler & Stephen Ceccoli & Ronald Gelleny, 2008. "Attitudes toward Eliminating Income Inequality in Europe," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 217-241, June.
    19. Michael Carolan, 2020. "Filtering perceptions of climate change and biotechnology: values and views among Colorado farmers and ranchers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 121-139, March.
    20. Baghdasaryan, Vardan & Iannantuoni, Giovanna & Maggian, Valeria, 2019. "Electoral fraud and voter turnout: An experimental study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 203-219.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:53:y:2009:i:1:p:139-155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.