Summary

The Supreme Court and Democracy (SCD) Panel Study is an NSF-funded, four-wave panel study that investigates the relationship between American citizens' democratic attitudes and their support for the Supreme Court. The full dataset will be publicly released in June 2023.

Description  

The Supreme Court of the United States is one of the most powerful institutions within the American political system – exercising authority over life, liberty, and property. While granted these powers by law and political tradition, the Court’s legitimacy in making these weighty decisions rests, in no small part, on the public accepting that the Court is “above” politics. In other words, despite creating “winners” and “losers” when issuing decisions, ordinary people seem to believe two things: (1) the Court’s members were chosen via fair, democratic processes, and (2) differences in opinion are due to conflicting Constitutional interpretations rather than the naked partisan preferences of Justices. These assumptions, however, have been sorely tested in recent years. From brutal, polarized confirmation hearings to questions about candidates’ fitness to serve, and controversial, highly visible decisions, some citizens may not see the Court as the same backstop for democratic values that it was in the mid-20th Century. These developments raise thorny questions about the sources of public support for the Supreme Court more generally. This panel study  investigates whether citizens’ democratic beliefs are connected to their views about the Court’s legitimacy, and, in turn, whether those attitudes are affected by the Court’s decisions.

Words

In defense of the death of legitimacy: Introducing the Supreme Court and Democracy Panel Study

Papers

How voters think about the electoral relevance of the Supreme Court - Forthcoming, Journal of Law & Courts

Supreme Court legitimacy exhibits new partisan sorting - Final wave data collection ongoing