Judging Inequality

State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis

Bibliographic Data

ID4946384
AuthorsJames L Gibson (0000-0002-2571-6596, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, corresponding author), Michael J Nelson (0000-0002-7665-7557, British Institute of International and Comparative Law)
Year2022
Volume137
Issue2
Pages263-292
Publication date2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Science Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3195 • E-ISSN: 1538-165X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1002/polq.13318
OpenAlexW3197991529
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited10

What role have courts, especially the state high courts, played in the rise of inequality in America? In this article, we report key findings from our recent book, Judging Inequality. We begin by describing the data we collected about cases and judges, illustrating the wide degree of variation across courts and justices in the propensity to decide in favor of greater political, legal, economic, and social equality. Second, we describe our measure of judicial ideology and present evidence of a significant relationship between ideologies and behavior in cases implicating inequality in the state high courts. Next, we zoom out and examine change in the composition of the state high courts between 1990 and 2015. We find a marked ascendency of Republican (conservative) justices, such that institutions that were once dominated by Democratic (liberal) justices reached parity at the end of our time period. Finally, we discuss how the composition of these courts relates to the other branches of state government, arguing that state high courts are powerful allies to the dominant political interests in power in a state at a given point in time, rather than an independent bulwark against rising inequality. We conclude that state high courts are rarely an independent force for creating greater political, legal, economic, and social inequality; instead, these courts tend to support the same policies endorsed by the governing coalition in their states. We outline some mechanisms, most notably control over initial selection of justices and the role of state-level public opinion, that political elites seem to use to strengthen their control over these powerful institutions. We conclude by reflecting on the role of state high courts in democratic theory and their consequences for the seemingly inexorable rise of inequality in America

Algorithm · Citation · Inclusion (mineral · Inequality · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Supreme court · Computer Science · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Mathematics

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