Even if party capability theory has been well documented, parsing out the reasons why “haves” come out ahead has been challenging. Our study takes advantage of the Argentine Supreme Court’s power to dismiss appeals because they contain formal errors to ascertain the existence of representational advantage. We show that representational advantage plays a significant role, as individual appellants represent a larger proportion of appeals rejected on formal grounds than of those analyzed on their merits. In addition, certain areas of law where asymmetrical capability is prevalent and consistent, particularly labor law, are significantly overrepresented in appeals rejected on formal grounds.
When dissents are allowed, judges must decide whether or when to write them. While the main insights of rational dissent theory have been documented and corroborated in several empirical studies, there has been much less evidence testing on how different types of dissent may affect the likelihood of dissent. Particularly, dissents in more salient cases, or more forceful dissents, may have stronger legal effects than dissents appearing in less relevant cases or very narrowly construed dissents. Our article aims to fill that gap in the literature by seeking to isolate varying levels of appeal intensity and types of dissents in the Supreme Court of Argentina. Unlike previous literature, we find that more important cases have a lower likelihood of carrying a dissenting opinion. Yet, when we breakdown dissents by type (that is, reasoned dissents versus boilerplate dissents), we find that majority decisions carrying dissents tend to be longer, but only in cases of reasoned dissents. Furthermore, we show that reasoned dissents are more likely to occur in important cases. Overall, our study highlights that not all dissents should be treated alike as different types of dissent carry different levels of collegial and effort related costs. These costs affect the likelihood of dissent in different and complex ways.
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