Strategic Versus Sincere Behavior: The Impact of Issue Salience and Congress on the Supreme Court Docket

The theory proposed here is that the Supreme Court behaves in a strategic manner at the agenda-setting stage in order to vote sincerely on the merits. To test this, I measure the impact issue salience and ideological distance between Congress and the Supreme Court has on the agenda. The results indicate that whether the Supreme Court behaves either sincerely or strategically depends on the policy area. The strategic nature of the Supreme Court at the agenda-setting phase may be in large part why some research shows that the Court behaves sincerely when voting on the merits. By behaving strategically at the agenda-setting phase, the Court is free to vote sincerely in later parts of the judicial process.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2002

Author dc:creator

• Williams, Jeffrey David

Contributors dc:contributor

• Feigert, Frank
• Smith, Donald Wiley
• Forde, Steven

• United States. Supreme Court.
• Judicial process -- United States.
• Supreme Court
• Congress
• agenda setting
• issue salience
• strategic/sincere behavior

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Williams, Jeffrey David
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 54888961
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3106/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc3106

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc3106