IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00019216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coordination and Innovation in Judiciaries: Correct Law versus Consistent Law

Author

Listed:
  • Mehdi Shadmehr
  • Sepehr Shahshahani
  • Charles Cameron

Abstract

We identify the coordination consideration among judges who do not have formal authority over each other, and investigate its consequences for their decisions and legal innovations. Coordination concerns arise because judges value the consistent application of law. To mitigate their strategic uncertainty, judges overweight interpretations that are visible throughout the judiciary (e.g., prominent judges' opinions) because their visibility facilitates coordination. This creates a tradeoff between the consistent and correct application of law—the two desiderata of judicial decision-making. In particular, anticipating overreactions to their opinions, some prominent judges refrain from expressing their informed opinions. Paradoxically, the propensity to refrain is strongest in prominent judges who care most about the correct application of law. From their perspective, excessive concern for uniformity in the judiciary overrides the informational value of expressing informed opinions. We explore the implications for issuing narrow or broad opinions, the stickiness of precedent, and the practice of stare decisis. We provide concrete examples from contract, property, tort, and constitutional law that support our theoretical mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Mehdi Shadmehr & Sepehr Shahshahani & Charles Cameron, 2022. "Coordination and Innovation in Judiciaries: Correct Law versus Consistent Law," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 17(1), pages 61-89, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00019216
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00019216
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00019216
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00019216?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:now:jlqjps:100.00019216. 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: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    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.