Tonja Jacobi

Biographic Data

ID4115202
NAMETonja Jacobi
GIVEN NAMESTonja
FAMILY NAMEJacobi
SIGNATUREJACOBI T
AFFILIATIONSNorthwestern University
ORCID0000-0002-5200-5765
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS8
TOTAL CITATIONS16
AUTHOR COUNT8
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2005
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX3

  • Ideology and Agenda Setting in the High Court of Australia

    Open AccessPatrick Leslie, Tonja Jacobi et al.ARTICLEJournal of Empirical Legal Studies2026

    Does judicial ideology affect the process of agenda‐setting in the High Court of Australia? Applications for “special leave” to appeal are the primary method through which the High Court manages its caseload, analogous to certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court. Acceptance rates are low (10%–15%) and the consequences of rejection for litigants are high, since the Court rules as the final court of appeal in all areas of Australian law, including cons…

  • Lower Court Disagreements as Cues for Agenda Setting in the High Court of Australia

    Open AccessRussell Smyth, Patrick Leslie et al.ARTICLEJournal of Law and Courts2026

    We extend cue theory to examine why and how dissent on the court below acts as a cue to apex courts in selecting the cases they hear. We posit that dissent on the court below is a cue to the apex court that the case involves complex legal issues. To test our predictions about how dissent on the court below affects the selection of cases and factors mediating and moderating this relationship, we use original data on 8,405 special leave application…

  • Institutional Design and the Predictability of Judicial Interruptions at Oral Argument

    Open AccessTonja Jacobi, Patrick Leslie et al.ARTICLEJournal of Law and Courts2024References: 23

    Examining oral argument in the Australian High Court and comparing to the U.S. Supreme Court, this article shows that institutional design drives judicial interruptive behavior. Many of the same individual- and case-level factors predict oral argument behavior. Notably, despite orthodoxy of the High Court as “apolitical,” ideology strongly predicts interruptions, just as in the United States. Yet, important divergent institutional design features…

  • Comparative Exceptionalism? Strategy and Ideology in the High Court of Australia

    Open AccessTonja Jacobi, Zoë Robinson et al.ARTICLEThe American Journal of…2023

    This Article provides a rare comprehensive empirical assessment of oral argument outside of the United States. Drawing on a novel dataset over twenty-six years (1995–2019), comprising nearly one million speech episodes at oral argument in Australia’s apex court, the High Court of Australia, we are able to compare patterns of judicial behavior found in the U.S. Supreme Court to a comparable Western liberal democracy with a long tradition of judici…

  • SCOTUS in the time of Covid: The evolution of justice dynamics during Oral arguments

    Open AccessEve M Ringsmuth, Matthew Sag et al.ARTICLELaw & Policy2023Cited by: 3References: 12

    We assess changes in oral arguments at the US Supreme Court precipitated by the COVID‐19 pandemic and the degree to which those changes persisted once the justices acclimated to the new procedures. To do this, we examine whether key attributes of these proceedings changed as the Court experimented with telephonic hearings and subsequently returned to in‐person oral arguments. We demonstrate that the initial telephonic forum changed the dynamics o…

  • The Strategic Analysis of Judicial Decisions

    Open AccessLee Epstein, Tonja JacobiARTICLEAnnual Review of Law and Social…2010Cited by: 9References: 36

    Since the 1990s, there has been an explosion of empirical and theoretical work dedicated to advancing strategic accounts of law and legal institutions. Reviewing this extensive literature could be accomplished in multiple ways. We chose an approach that underscores a major contribution of strategic accounts: that they have forced scholars to think about the interdependent—i.e., strategic—nature of judicial decisions. On strategic accounts, in oth…

  • The New Separation‐of‐Powers Approach to American Politics

    Rui J P De Figueiredo, Tonja Jacobi et al.CHAPTERThe Oxford handbook of political…2009

    This article aims to elaborate on the logic of the new separation-of-powers approach and draw its implications for American politics. The first three sections in the article discuss the new separation of powers as it applies to the bureaucracy, the courts, and the presidency. A survey of a series of works that emphasize the new separation-of-powers approach to American politics is provided in the article as well.

  • The Senatorial Courtesy Game: Explaining the Norm of Informal Vetoes in Advice and Consent Nominations

    Open AccessTonja JacobiARTICLELegislative Studies Quarterly2005Cited by: 4References: 14

    Despite the contentiousness of advice and consent nominations, the Senate usually rejects a candidate to whom a home senator objects. Using game theory, this article explains the persistence of senatorial courtesy and maps its effects on which candidates succeed. The greater salience of a home nomination allows retaliation and reciprocity in a repeated game to elicit support for a veto, even under adverse conditions. Comparative statics indicate …