IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v91y1997i01p28-44_23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Separation-of-Powers Games in the Positive Theory of Congress and Courts

Author

Listed:
  • Segal, Jeffrey A.

Abstract

The hallmark of the new positive theories of the judiciary is that Supreme Court justices will frequently defer to the preferences of Congress when making decisions, particularly in statutory cases in which it is purportedly easy for Congress to reverse the Court. Alternatively, judicial attitudinalists argue that the institutional structures facing the Court allow the justices to vote their sincere policy preferences. This paper compares these sincere and sophisticated models of voting behavior by Supreme Court justices. Using a variety of tests on the votes of Supreme Court justices in statutory cases decided between 1947 and 1992, I find some evidence of sophisticated behavior, but most tests suggest otherwise. Moreover, direct comparisons between the two models unambiguously favor the attitudinal model. I conclude that the justices overwhelmingly engage in rationally sincere behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Segal, Jeffrey A., 1997. "Separation-of-Powers Games in the Positive Theory of Congress and Courts," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(1), pages 28-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:91:y:1997:i:01:p:28-44_23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400231006/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pablo T Spiller & Rafael Gely, 2007. "Strategic Judicial Decision Making," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000001409, David K. Levine.
    2. Mario Bergara & Barak Richman & Pablo T. Spiller, 2002. "Modeling Supreme Court Strategic Decision Making: Congressional Constraint," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1402, Department of Economics - dECON.
    3. Jonathan P. Kastellec & Jeffrey R. Lax, 2008. "Case Selection and the Study of Judicial Politics," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(3), pages 407-446, September.
    4. Álvaro Bustos & Nuno Garoupa, 2020. "An Integrated Theory of Litigation and Legal Standards," Documentos de Trabajo 536, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    5. Rorie Spill Solberg & Stefanie A. Lindquist, 2006. "Activism, Ideology, and Federalism: Judicial Behavior in Constitutional Challenges Before the Rehnquist Court, 1986–2000," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), pages 237-261, July.
    6. Ryan J. Owens, 2010. "The Separation of Powers and Supreme Court Agenda Setting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 412-427, April.
    7. Jeffrey R. Lax, 2003. "Certiorari and Compliance in the Judicial Hierarchy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 61-86, January.
    8. Caporale, Tony & Winter, Harold, 1998. "Political influence over Supreme Court criminal procedure cases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 465-475, May.
    9. Crombez, Christophe & Groseclose, Timothy J. & Krehbiel, Keith, 2005. "Gatekeeping," Research Papers 1861r1, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    10. repec:gig:joupla:v:2:y:2010:i:3:p:71-97 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Karakas, Leyla D., 2017. "Political rents under alternative forms of judicial review," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 86-96.
    12. De Figueiredo, John M. & De Figueiredo, Rui J. P. Jr., 2002. "The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation," Working papers 4247-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    13. John M. de Figueiredo & Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, 2002. "The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation," NBER Working Papers 8981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Charles R. Shipan, 2000. "The Legislative Design of Judicial Review," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 269-304, July.
    15. John M. de Figueiredo, 2009. "Integrated Political Strategy," NBER Working Papers 15053, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Udi Sommer, 2011. "How rational are justices on the Supreme Court of the United States? Doctrinal considerations during agenda setting," Rationality and Society, , vol. 23(4), pages 452-477, November.
    17. Tom S. Clark, 2009. "The Separation of Powers, Court Curbing, and Judicial Legitimacy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 971-989, October.
    18. Lee Epstein & Olga Shvetsova, 2002. "Heresthetical Maneuvering on the US Supreme Court," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 93-122, January.
    19. David Gliksberg, 2014. "Does the Law Matter? Win Rates and Law Reforms," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(2), pages 378-407, June.
    20. Assaf Meydani & Shlomo Mizrahi, 2010. "The Relationship Between the Supreme Court and Parliament in Light of the Theory of Moves: the Case of Israel," Rationality and Society, , vol. 22(1), pages 55-82, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:91:y:1997:i:01:p:28-44_23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.