Supreme Court legitimacy exhibits new partisan sorting

Abstract

A rich literature argues that the perceived legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court is stable and resists the polarizing forces of partisan politics. However, political developments over the last several years raise the possibility that Democrats and Republicans now view the Court’s place in democracy differently. We analyze an original dataset of surveys from the contemporary period in which widespread partisan sorting dovetails with a sharp decline in public approval of the Court. Study 1 shows that, against the expectations of legitimacy theory, diffuse support for the Court has dramatically sorted since 2016. In Study 2, we find that partisan sorting on several correlates of diffuse support fuels these partisan differences in Supreme Court legitimacy: Democrats are more cynical about the Court, disapprove of its outputs, and approach obedience to the law in ways different than Republicans. Our analysis conveys that partisanship directly and indirectly shapes this crisis of legitimacy.