Convention holds that the Supreme Court, because of its special constitutional role, can confer an element of legitimacy on a policy simply by endorsing it. In this study, we conducted an experiment to test the legitimacy-conferring effect of Court rulings on public opinion in two policy areas—affirmative action and regulation of phone rates. We found that in both cases, the Supreme Court had an impact on policy agreement and behavioral intentions that was moderated by other important variables. We conclude that the Supreme Court plays an important role in shaping public opinion and political behavior.
Objectives. We test two competing explanations in order to answer the question: Why do organized interests choose to engage in advocacy behavior? The first turns on the notion that concerns with policy success are the principal forces affecting a group's choice. To a lesser degree, issues of group maintenance have also been identified as entering into organized interests' decisional calculus.
Method. Using survey data supplemented with confidential interviews of organized interests, we systematically examine the power of both accounts to explain the decision of groups to locate their energies in the federal judiciary. Consequently, in the penultimate section of the article, we specify and test a comprehensive model of interest group litigation behavior.
Results. In the resulting multivariate analysis, we find that forces associated with both avenues of explanation for interest group advocacy behavior have substantial statistical purchase and empirical traction.
Conclusion. Our findings did not show a dominate role for maintenance concerns; however, clearly, a group's assessment of where, and possibly whether, to act is not an easy calculation based on the receptiveness of a venue and the available balance in the bank account. Groups must attend to their members and their competition. Explanations of group advocacy omitting such concerns are inherently flawed.
Unlike other policy-making institutions that actively attempt to shape public opinion, the Supreme Court is largely dependent upon others to disseminate its policy pronouncements to the public. One consequence: How the media frame the Court's actions can affect public support for Court policies. This article presents the results of an experiment designed to take soundings on the effect of different media frames on White and Black support for a controversial affirmative action ruling. Using stimuli we created based on coverage of the Adarand v. Pena (1995) decision in the Black press and the mainstream press, we find that media framing has a significant effect on agreement with the Court's policy among White subjects. For Blacks, the impact of the media framing is moderated by ideological predispositions. In addition, both White and Black support for the Court's ruling is influenced by the media portrayal of Justice Clarence Thomas.No policy-making institution in American government bores with a larger auger than the U.S. Supreme Court. It regularly hands down decisions with profound policy implications, giving shape and meaning to the basic constitutional structure, establishing the rules for social order, focusing political attention on sets of issues, and determining winners and losers. Yet, despite its substantial impact, the Earlier versions of this article were presented at the
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