Harold J Spaeth
Biographic Data
| ID | 1100525 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harold J Spaeth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harold J |
| FAMILY NAME | Spaeth |
| SIGNATURE | SPAETH H J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 328 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The outcome-prediction strategy in cases denied certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court
The Constraint of Law: A Study of Supreme Court Dissensus
To study the behavior of judges, one must first consider whether judges are just like any other political actor (e.g., legislators) or whether, because of their affiliation with the judiciary, law constrains their behavior to some extent. Research aimed at considering the extent to which judges are constrained by the law is sparse, and conclusions resulting from such research are mixed. In this article, the authors explore the extent to which law…
The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited
This book, authored by two leading scholars of the Supreme Court and its policy making, systematically presents and validates the use of the attitudinal model to explain and predict Supreme Court decision making. In the process, it critiques the two major alternative models of Supreme Court decision making and their major variants: the legal and rational choice. Using the US Supreme Court Data Base, the justices' private papers, and other sources…
Aggressive Grants by Affirm-Minded Justices
Given that the Supreme Court usually reverses the decision of the court below, why would justices who agree with that decision vote to hear the case? In other words, why would affirmminded justices vote to grant cert? Scholars refer to such behavior as the outcome prediction strategy. We examine its putative presence on the Vinson and Warren courts because valid and reliable data for these two courts exist. Our study has two purposes: (a) to iden…
The Norm of Consensus on the U.S. Supreme Court
For four decades scholars have sought to explain the rise of dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court. While the specific explanations they offer vary, virtually all rest on a common story: during the nineteenth (and into the twentieth) century, the Supreme Court followed a norm of consensus. That is, the justices may have privately disagreed over the outcomes of cases but masked their disagreement from the public by producing consensual opinions. The…
Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Do the political preferences of U.S. Supreme Court justices change over time? Judicial specialists are virtually unanimous in their response: The occasional anomaly notwithstanding, most jurists evince consistent voting behavior over the course of their careers. Still, for all the research that presupposes the consistency of preferences, it is startling to find that scholars have yet to explore rigorously the assumption of stability. We fill this…
Norms, Dragons, and Stare Decisis: A Response
Participants in this forum have raised a number of questions about our study examining the influence of stare decisis on the votes of United States Supreme Court justices. In response, we argue that (1) prominent scholars continue to accept various components of the legal model; (2) in testing the influence of precedent, we should and do examine votes and policy positions; and (3) we appropriately selected and evaluated our cases. Examining the o…
The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of United States Supreme Court Justices
Theory: We test arguments from the legal model claiming that United States Supreme Court justices will follow previously established legal rules even when they disagree with them; i.e., that they are influenced by stare decisis. Hypothesis: Because of the institutional features facing Supreme Court justices, we argue that justices who dissent from or otherwise disagree with Supreme Court precedents established in landmark cases are free not to su…
Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited
Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond …
Ideological Patterns in the Justices' Voting in the Burger Court's Business Cases
Recent research has shown that economic liberalism no longer explains the Burger Court's business decisions. To discover what does, Hagle and Spaeth (1992) systematically analyzed the universe of Burger Court business decisions and found that a small set of ideological variables, which they labeled "instrumental libertarianism" accounted for most of these decisions. To supplement our 1992 study, we have constructed optimal models for the 10 most …
The Emergence of a New Ideology: The Business Decisions of the Burger Court
Unlike the Vinson and Warren Courts, efforts to cumulatively scale the business decisions of the Burger Court on the basis of the justices' responses toward economic liberalism have proven unsuccessful. Several reasons are advanced for this change including the Court's attitude to transfers of power between state government, federal government, and individual business entities; the exercise of agency or judicial power; and two-case characteristic…
Voting Fluidity and the Attitudinal Model of Supreme Court Decision Making
Increasing the Size of Minimum Winning Original Coalitions on the Warren Court
The Defection of the Marginal Justice on the Warren Court
Majority Opinion Assignments and the Maintenance of the Original Coalition on the Warren Court
Conventional wisdom about the U.S. Supreme Court states that assignment of the majority opinion to the marginal member of the minimum winning original coalition might ensure its survival. Insofar as minimum winning original coalitions on the Warren Court are concerned (which original coalitions were identified by reference to the justices' docket books), the conventional wisdom is wrong. Although the marginal justice is substantially advantaged i…
Issue Specialization in Majority Opinion Assignment On the Burger Court
Influence Relationships within the Supreme Court: A Comparison of the Warren and Burger Courts
IN ORDER to enhance understanding of the relationships among the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and to provoke a degree of conceptual and operational standardization within the judicial subfield, if not more broadly we operationalized the construct of influence in a previous paper (Altfeld and Spaeth 1984) and measured its effects on the justices who served during the first twelve years of the Burger Court (1969-1980). Our purpose here is to …
Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976
Gregory J. Rathjen, Harold J. Spaeth, Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 71-87
Access to the Federal Courts: An Analysis of Burger Court Policy Making
The issues of access to the federal courts and the policy implications of recent Supreme Court decisions have been the subject of much taxonomic and doctrinal analysis, particularly in light of the pattern of retrenchment and restriction that the Burger Court has displayed. This analysis attempts to ascertain what factors have motivated the Burger Court Justices in their policy choices. Through the use of cumulative scaling we find that none of o…
Is Justice Blind: An Empirical Investigaton of a Normative Ideal
Of the many enduring myths which serve as the foundation for American democracy, none is as pervasive as that of judicial objectivity. While the assertion that justice is blind is probably met with understandable cynicism, most Americans still believe that their judges, especially those in the appellate courts, should approach their responsibilities with a certain myopia. The rules and customs that are the foundation of Anglo-American legal pract…
The Use and Utility of the Monotone Criterion in Multidimensional Scaling
The monotone criterion as a multidimensional scaling technique is theoret- ically and empirically evaluated using the algorithms of Kruskal (MDSCAL) and Guttman-Lingoes (SSA-1). Geometric configurations are used to test the recovery capabaty and other aspects of MDSCAL and SSA-1. In addition to theoretical shortcomings, the monotone criterion permits results which do not correspond to the shape of the input data. Because of its deficiencies, alte…
Jurimetrics and Professor Mendelson: A Troubled Relationship
An Analysis of Judicial Attitudes in the Labor Relations Decisions of the Warren Court
Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited
Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond …
The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of United States Supreme Court Justices
Theory: We test arguments from the legal model claiming that United States Supreme Court justices will follow previously established legal rules even when they disagree with them; i.e., that they are influenced by stare decisis. Hypothesis: Because of the institutional features facing Supreme Court justices, we argue that justices who dissent from or otherwise disagree with Supreme Court precedents established in landmark cases are free not to su…
The Norm of Consensus on the U.S. Supreme Court
For four decades scholars have sought to explain the rise of dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court. While the specific explanations they offer vary, virtually all rest on a common story: during the nineteenth (and into the twentieth) century, the Supreme Court followed a norm of consensus. That is, the justices may have privately disagreed over the outcomes of cases but masked their disagreement from the public by producing consensual opinions. The…
Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Do the political preferences of U.S. Supreme Court justices change over time? Judicial specialists are virtually unanimous in their response: The occasional anomaly notwithstanding, most jurists evince consistent voting behavior over the course of their careers. Still, for all the research that presupposes the consistency of preferences, it is startling to find that scholars have yet to explore rigorously the assumption of stability. We fill this…
Majority Opinion Assignments and the Maintenance of the Original Coalition on the Warren Court
Conventional wisdom about the U.S. Supreme Court states that assignment of the majority opinion to the marginal member of the minimum winning original coalition might ensure its survival. Insofar as minimum winning original coalitions on the Warren Court are concerned (which original coalitions were identified by reference to the justices' docket books), the conventional wisdom is wrong. Although the marginal justice is substantially advantaged i…
Increasing the Size of Minimum Winning Original Coalitions on the Warren Court
Norms, Dragons, and Stare Decisis: A Response
Participants in this forum have raised a number of questions about our study examining the influence of stare decisis on the votes of United States Supreme Court justices. In response, we argue that (1) prominent scholars continue to accept various components of the legal model; (2) in testing the influence of precedent, we should and do examine votes and policy positions; and (3) we appropriately selected and evaluated our cases. Examining the o…
Voting Fluidity and the Attitudinal Model of Supreme Court Decision Making
An Analysis of Judicial Attitudes in the Labor Relations Decisions of the Warren Court
The Defection of the Marginal Justice on the Warren Court
Ideological Patterns in the Justices' Voting in the Burger Court's Business Cases
Recent research has shown that economic liberalism no longer explains the Burger Court's business decisions. To discover what does, Hagle and Spaeth (1992) systematically analyzed the universe of Burger Court business decisions and found that a small set of ideological variables, which they labeled "instrumental libertarianism" accounted for most of these decisions. To supplement our 1992 study, we have constructed optimal models for the 10 most …
The Emergence of a New Ideology: The Business Decisions of the Burger Court
Unlike the Vinson and Warren Courts, efforts to cumulatively scale the business decisions of the Burger Court on the basis of the justices' responses toward economic liberalism have proven unsuccessful. Several reasons are advanced for this change including the Court's attitude to transfers of power between state government, federal government, and individual business entities; the exercise of agency or judicial power; and two-case characteristic…
Access to the Federal Courts: An Analysis of Burger Court Policy Making
The issues of access to the federal courts and the policy implications of recent Supreme Court decisions have been the subject of much taxonomic and doctrinal analysis, particularly in light of the pattern of retrenchment and restriction that the Burger Court has displayed. This analysis attempts to ascertain what factors have motivated the Burger Court Justices in their policy choices. Through the use of cumulative scaling we find that none of o…
Aggressive Grants by Affirm-Minded Justices
Given that the Supreme Court usually reverses the decision of the court below, why would justices who agree with that decision vote to hear the case? In other words, why would affirmminded justices vote to grant cert? Scholars refer to such behavior as the outcome prediction strategy. We examine its putative presence on the Vinson and Warren courts because valid and reliable data for these two courts exist. Our study has two purposes: (a) to iden…
Issue Specialization in Majority Opinion Assignment On the Burger Court
Influence Relationships within the Supreme Court: A Comparison of the Warren and Burger Courts
IN ORDER to enhance understanding of the relationships among the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and to provoke a degree of conceptual and operational standardization within the judicial subfield, if not more broadly we operationalized the construct of influence in a previous paper (Altfeld and Spaeth 1984) and measured its effects on the justices who served during the first twelve years of the Burger Court (1969-1980). Our purpose here is to …
Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976
Gregory J. Rathjen, Harold J. Spaeth, Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 71-87
Is Justice Blind: An Empirical Investigaton of a Normative Ideal
Of the many enduring myths which serve as the foundation for American democracy, none is as pervasive as that of judicial objectivity. While the assertion that justice is blind is probably met with understandable cynicism, most Americans still believe that their judges, especially those in the appellate courts, should approach their responsibilities with a certain myopia. The rules and customs that are the foundation of Anglo-American legal pract…
The Constraint of Law: A Study of Supreme Court Dissensus
To study the behavior of judges, one must first consider whether judges are just like any other political actor (e.g., legislators) or whether, because of their affiliation with the judiciary, law constrains their behavior to some extent. Research aimed at considering the extent to which judges are constrained by the law is sparse, and conclusions resulting from such research are mixed. In this article, the authors explore the extent to which law…
Jurimetrics and Professor Mendelson: A Troubled Relationship
An Analysis of Judicial Attitudes in the Labor Relations Decisions of the Warren Court
Jurimetrics and Professor Mendelson: A Troubled Relationship
The Use and Utility of the Monotone Criterion in Multidimensional Scaling
The monotone criterion as a multidimensional scaling technique is theoret- ically and empirically evaluated using the algorithms of Kruskal (MDSCAL) and Guttman-Lingoes (SSA-1). Geometric configurations are used to test the recovery capabaty and other aspects of MDSCAL and SSA-1. In addition to theoretical shortcomings, the monotone criterion permits results which do not correspond to the shape of the input data. Because of its deficiencies, alte…
Is Justice Blind: An Empirical Investigaton of a Normative Ideal
Of the many enduring myths which serve as the foundation for American democracy, none is as pervasive as that of judicial objectivity. While the assertion that justice is blind is probably met with understandable cynicism, most Americans still believe that their judges, especially those in the appellate courts, should approach their responsibilities with a certain myopia. The rules and customs that are the foundation of Anglo-American legal pract…
Access to the Federal Courts: An Analysis of Burger Court Policy Making
The issues of access to the federal courts and the policy implications of recent Supreme Court decisions have been the subject of much taxonomic and doctrinal analysis, particularly in light of the pattern of retrenchment and restriction that the Burger Court has displayed. This analysis attempts to ascertain what factors have motivated the Burger Court Justices in their policy choices. Through the use of cumulative scaling we find that none of o…
Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976
Gregory J. Rathjen, Harold J. Spaeth, Denial of Access and Ideological Preferences: An Analysis of the Voting Behavior of the Burger Court Justices, 1969-1976, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 71-87
Influence Relationships within the Supreme Court: A Comparison of the Warren and Burger Courts
IN ORDER to enhance understanding of the relationships among the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and to provoke a degree of conceptual and operational standardization within the judicial subfield, if not more broadly we operationalized the construct of influence in a previous paper (Altfeld and Spaeth 1984) and measured its effects on the justices who served during the first twelve years of the Burger Court (1969-1980). Our purpose here is to …
Issue Specialization in Majority Opinion Assignment On the Burger Court
Majority Opinion Assignments and the Maintenance of the Original Coalition on the Warren Court
Conventional wisdom about the U.S. Supreme Court states that assignment of the majority opinion to the marginal member of the minimum winning original coalition might ensure its survival. Insofar as minimum winning original coalitions on the Warren Court are concerned (which original coalitions were identified by reference to the justices' docket books), the conventional wisdom is wrong. Although the marginal justice is substantially advantaged i…
The Defection of the Marginal Justice on the Warren Court
Increasing the Size of Minimum Winning Original Coalitions on the Warren Court
Voting Fluidity and the Attitudinal Model of Supreme Court Decision Making
The Emergence of a New Ideology: The Business Decisions of the Burger Court
Unlike the Vinson and Warren Courts, efforts to cumulatively scale the business decisions of the Burger Court on the basis of the justices' responses toward economic liberalism have proven unsuccessful. Several reasons are advanced for this change including the Court's attitude to transfers of power between state government, federal government, and individual business entities; the exercise of agency or judicial power; and two-case characteristic…
Ideological Patterns in the Justices' Voting in the Burger Court's Business Cases
Recent research has shown that economic liberalism no longer explains the Burger Court's business decisions. To discover what does, Hagle and Spaeth (1992) systematically analyzed the universe of Burger Court business decisions and found that a small set of ideological variables, which they labeled "instrumental libertarianism" accounted for most of these decisions. To supplement our 1992 study, we have constructed optimal models for the 10 most …
Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited
Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond …
Norms, Dragons, and Stare Decisis: A Response
Participants in this forum have raised a number of questions about our study examining the influence of stare decisis on the votes of United States Supreme Court justices. In response, we argue that (1) prominent scholars continue to accept various components of the legal model; (2) in testing the influence of precedent, we should and do examine votes and policy positions; and (3) we appropriately selected and evaluated our cases. Examining the o…
The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of United States Supreme Court Justices
Theory: We test arguments from the legal model claiming that United States Supreme Court justices will follow previously established legal rules even when they disagree with them; i.e., that they are influenced by stare decisis. Hypothesis: Because of the institutional features facing Supreme Court justices, we argue that justices who dissent from or otherwise disagree with Supreme Court precedents established in landmark cases are free not to su…
Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Do the political preferences of U.S. Supreme Court justices change over time? Judicial specialists are virtually unanimous in their response: The occasional anomaly notwithstanding, most jurists evince consistent voting behavior over the course of their careers. Still, for all the research that presupposes the consistency of preferences, it is startling to find that scholars have yet to explore rigorously the assumption of stability. We fill this…
The Norm of Consensus on the U.S. Supreme Court
For four decades scholars have sought to explain the rise of dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court. While the specific explanations they offer vary, virtually all rest on a common story: during the nineteenth (and into the twentieth) century, the Supreme Court followed a norm of consensus. That is, the justices may have privately disagreed over the outcomes of cases but masked their disagreement from the public by producing consensual opinions. The…
The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited
This book, authored by two leading scholars of the Supreme Court and its policy making, systematically presents and validates the use of the attitudinal model to explain and predict Supreme Court decision making. In the process, it critiques the two major alternative models of Supreme Court decision making and their major variants: the legal and rational choice. Using the US Supreme Court Data Base, the justices' private papers, and other sources…
Aggressive Grants by Affirm-Minded Justices
Given that the Supreme Court usually reverses the decision of the court below, why would justices who agree with that decision vote to hear the case? In other words, why would affirmminded justices vote to grant cert? Scholars refer to such behavior as the outcome prediction strategy. We examine its putative presence on the Vinson and Warren courts because valid and reliable data for these two courts exist. Our study has two purposes: (a) to iden…
The outcome-prediction strategy in cases denied certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court
The Constraint of Law: A Study of Supreme Court Dissensus
To study the behavior of judges, one must first consider whether judges are just like any other political actor (e.g., legislators) or whether, because of their affiliation with the judiciary, law constrains their behavior to some extent. Research aimed at considering the extent to which judges are constrained by the law is sparse, and conclusions resulting from such research are mixed. In this article, the authors explore the extent to which law…
Political science (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (17 works) · Supreme court (16 works) · Legal and Constitutional Studies (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law and economics (12 works) · Sociology (12 works)