This article aims to elaborate on the logic of the new separation-of-powers approach and draw its implications for American politics. The first three sections in the article discuss the new separation of powers as it applies to the bureaucracy, the courts, and the presidency. A survey of a series of works that emphasize the new separation-of-powers approach to American politics is provided in the article as well.
Describing the Justices of the Supreme Court as liberals and conservatives has become so standard and the left-right division on the Court is considered so entrenched that any deviation from that pattern is treated with surprise. Attentive Court watchers know that the Justices are not j ust politicians in robes, decidingeach case on a purely ideological basis. Yet the increasingly influential empirical legal studies literature assumes j ust that that a left-right ideological dimension fully describes the Supreme Court. We show that there is a second, more legally-focused dimension of j udicial decision making. A continuum between legalism and pragmatism also divides the Justices in ways that cut against ideological preferences. The second dimension is systematic and significant, occurring in multiple legal areas and in consistent patterns. Seen in this way, the Justices (and their decisions) can be understood in more complex terms, not j ust as ideological flagbearers, but as j urists who regularly have to choose between legal methodology and outcome preferences. In two dimensions, different patterns of coalitions emerge: in the second dimension, it
Despite the contentiousness of advice and consent nominations, the Senate usually rejects a candidate to whom a home senator objects. Using game theory, this article explains the persistence of senatorial courtesy and maps its effects on which candidates succeed. The greater salience of a home nomination allows retaliation and reciprocity in a repeated game to elicit support for a veto, even under adverse conditions. Comparative statics indicate the range of the president's feasible nominees and show which players gain and lose from the practice. Most notably, the president can benefit from an exercise of senatorial courtesy.
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