The Etiology of Public Support for the Supreme Court
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6232245 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gregory A Caldeira, James L Gibson (0000-0002-2571-6596) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 635 |
| Publication date | 1992-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2111585 |
| OpenAlex | W2608417329 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 289 |
| References cited | 17 |
The Supreme Court, like all political institutions, requires some minimal level of support because, as the high bench performs its political and constitutional roles, the justices must on occasion stand against the winds of public opinion. With data from a recent national survey, we reexamine the levels, sources, and explanations of public support for the Supreme Court. Since racial differences in attitudes toward the Court are so great, we focus here only on the attitudes of white U.S. citizens. Our purposes are both substantive and methodological. On the substantive front, we examine changes in the etiology of support. We investigate the traditional explanations of diffuse support, but, more important, we introduce and evaluate the power of a new set of variables, political values. These political values do an uncommonly good job of predicting attitudes toward the Court. In addition, we devote particular attention to the important role of as supporters of the Court. These leaders relate to the Court in a fashion very different from that of the mass public. On the methodological front, we offer an alternative means of thinking about and capturing diffuse support for the Court among the mass public. We close with speculations about the process by which diffuse support for the Court changes over time and, more generally, the implications of attitudes among the mass public and opinion leaders for the functioning of the Supreme Court
Concurring opinion · Court of record · Majority opinion · Original jurisdiction · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Public opinion · Public relations · Public support · Supreme court · Supreme Court Decisions · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Legal and Constitutional Studies
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| Unique citing works | 289 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,5 |
| Citation span | 1992 - 2026 (35) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 288 |