Using Citations to Measure Influence on the Supreme Court

Abstract

I develop a new measure of interpersonal influence on the U.S. Supreme Court. Following Altfeld and Spaeth, I define influence as “the act of producing an effect on the behavior of another without the use of coercion, authority, or political control.” I propose a measure of influence based on the number of times a justice cites her colleagues’ concurring and dissenting opinions. My analysis proceeds in two stages. First, I verify that this citation-based measure is a valid method of gauging influence. From there, I use this measure to help explain justice behavior in two pivotal stages of the Supreme Court’s decision-making process: oral arguments and opinion assignments. The results demonstrate that a citation-based measure of influence can help explain and predict behavior on the Supreme Court.

The Influence of EU Agencies

“…EU agencies cannot force the Commission to follow their advice because their opinions, recommendations, and advice are not binding. Out of many other pieces of information offered by various policy actors, however, if the Commission voluntarily chooses to consider expert advice from EU agencies and consequently formulates policy proposals based on it, this indicates that the Commission is persuaded by expert advice and presumably has a sincere belief that its author is right (see Pryor, 2017). The influence of EU agencies is evident if policy proposals from the Commission incorporate expert advice from those agencies.…”