Research

Current Projects

The Politics of Women’s Presence on High Courts: The Conditional Nature of Cultivating Legitimacy through Descriptive Representation with Melody Ellis Valdini

Recent research demonstrates that the mere presence of more women legislators triggers voters to assume that the legislature is more honest and democratic (Schwindt-Bayer and Alles 2018). This effect, however, has never been tested in the judicial branch of government. This is a glaring omission because, of all the branches, the high court is the one that is most dependent on perceptions of legitimacy for its ability to function. We argue that the stereotypical traits associated with women – e.g., being honest, fair, and thoughtful – are particularly valuable in the context of the high court. That is, given that the idealized court is one that is rooted in honesty and fairness, women’s association with these traits should trigger a particularly strong effect on the citizens’ appraisal of government legitimacy and quality of the court. However, we also argue that this effect should be limited to democratic regimes; in non-democracies, the high court serves a different purpose and thus the stereotypes associated with women are not as valuable. We present the results from an experiment conducted across three countries and offer evidence that the presence of women on the high court has a strong impact on citizen perceptions of court legitimacy, but only in democracies.

Reinvigorating Regime Politics

The theory of regime politics in the judiciary among legal scholars is in need of substantial development. This paper reviews the extant literature on regime politics, including its origins, before examining the criticisms this approach engendered. The valid concerns highlight the limited development of regime politics as a theory, despite the empirical work conducted in this tradition. This article addresses that shortcoming, explicitly identifying the underlying assumptions of regime politics theory and then developing testable hypotheses based on those assumptions that can be used by scholars from a variety of methodological approaches.

Urban Politics and the Judiciary: Treating Courts as Endogenous

The study of urban politics often focuses on the ability of urban regimes to successfully pursue their interests and goals. However, scholars of urban politics only peripherally consider the role that courts play. And when courts are incorporated, they are treated as exogenous to the political system. This paper argues for the importance of treating the judiciary as endogenous to the local political system. Courts are themselves political institutions and should be understood as such in the study of politics at the local level. Doing so offers several benefits, including accounting for the ways in which state-level preferences operate as constraints on regimes (or are successfully resisted) and identifying federal regime influence on local politics. The paper identifies the relevant criteria that ought to be collected in order to treat courts as endogenous and offers two case studies of what this would look like in practice.

Trial Courts, Local Regimes, and the Maintenance of Power

Though state trial courts handle the vast bulk of legal work in the United States, little work has been done to consider the ways in which these institutions are connected to the broader political regimes in which they operate. This study explores the ways in which trial courts can be tied up with and connected to dominant political regimes at the local level, particularly in cities with political machines. Biasing the electoral system, rewarding supporters, and punishing opponents are all tools that have been used by trial courts in machine cities.

Recent Publications

“Women’s Representation in the Highest Court: A Comparative Analysis of the Appointment of Female Justices.” with Melody Ellis Valdini, 2016. Political Research Quarterly 69 (4): 865-876.

"Voting in Trial Court Elections: Ballot Roll-Off in Partisan, Nonpartisan, and Retention Elections in High-Population Counties" Justice System Journal 34 (2): 153-170 (2013)

"The End of the Federalism Five?: Statutory Interpretation and the Roberts Court" Publius: The Journal of Federalism 42: 516-537 (2012)

"The Many Faces of Strict Scrutiny: How the Supreme Court Changes the Rules in Race Cases" with Evan Gerstmann, University of Pittsburgh Law Review 72 (1): 1-52 (2011)

"When Justice Is Not Blind: Corruption and the Courts" in Michael Genovese and Virginia Farrar-Myers, eds. Corruption and American Politics (Cambria Press 2010)

Rights, Remedies, and the Impact of State Sovereign Immunity. (SUNY Press 2008)

"The Suits That Counted: The Judicialization of Presidential Elections" with Charles Anthony Smith, Election Law Journal 6: 251-165 (2007) Spreadsheet of cases below