Week 10
before starting writing, make sure to:
read the Assessment page on the website extremely carefully
read the FAQ page on the website
consult slides from previous weeks (eg week 7)
What was the hypothesis in this paper?
South Africa is a noteworthy example of a country who created a constitutional court in order to successfully transition into democratization. This decision came at the cost of changing the jurisdictional scope and hierarchical standing of the Appellate division, now known as the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). This shift in the SCA’s jurisdictional scope and hierarchical standing allowed the Constitutional Court of South Africa (CC) to form a constitutional precedent, which I hypothesize increased the CC’s effectiveness and consequently contributed to South Africa’s successful transition into a democratic regime.
what are the determinants of public support of courts?
to what extent are courts immune from changes in public opinion?
Legitimacy is a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate, proper, and just. (Tyler 2006)
sometimes used interchangeably with “authority” and “diffuse support”
unlike democratic parliaments and executives, most courts cannot derive their legitimacy from electoral mandates
at the same time, courts rely on diffuse support for effectiveness more than other branches
particularly important when constituents disagree over a policy decision
traditionally, belief in legalism and exposure to legal symbols is seen as a major source of judicial legitimacy (Gibson and Nelson 2017; Caldeira and Gibson 1992)
legal symbols make individuals believe that what courts do is fairer and different from politics
more awareness of courts leads to more exposure to its legitimizing symbols and a build up of a “repository of goodwill”
legalistic (compared to partisan) framing of a ruling induces specific support (Magalhães et al. 2023)
Bartels and Johnston (2013) put forward an ideological explanation for judicial legitimacy
individuals who believe they are in an ideological disagreement with SCOTUS ascribe it lower legitimacy than those who think they are in agreement
individual perceptions of a court’s ideological tenor can be quite variable (lack of awareness, obscured by legalism, etc.)
perceived ideological congruence matters less for people who think courts decide on a case-by-case basis
seemingly even controversial decisions such as Bush v. Gore did not significantly reduce diffuse support for SCOTUS (Gibson 2024)
… that is until Dobbs (Levendusky et al. 2024)
Effect of the Dobbs ruling on trust in SCOTUS (Levendusky et al. 2024)
we would expect that individuals holding democratic values are more supportive of judicial independence
a study of 34 African countries shows that presidential co-partisanship decreases support for horizontal judicial power and increases it for vertical (Bartels and Kramon 2020)
in line with positivity theory, greater awareness of a court should be associated with more support for its independence (Gibson, Lodge, and Woodson 2014)
Gandur, Chewning, and Driscoll (2025) show that this relationship is affected by the political context
in Poland and Hungary, the perception of executive influence on courts creates even more demand for judicial independence than in US and Germany, but awareness alone does not
Micheli and Taylor (2024) similarly show that knowledge alone of Latin American courts does not increase trust
identification with anti-system parties may reduce trust in courts (Arzheimer 2024)
Decline in trust in the German Constitutional Court among AfD voters (Arzheimer 2024)
to maintain diffuse support, it is arguably in courts’ long-term interests to stay ideologically close to the median voter
courts can offer compensation to the “losers” to increase acceptance (Gonzalez-Ocantos and Dinas 2019)
courts might care less about maintaining public support when
they are aligned with the executive (for enforcement)
the public is not paying attention (but see Casillas, Enns, and Wohlfarth (2011))
public opinion is less important (autocracies)
SCOTUS v. the public (Jessee, Malhotra, and Sen 2022)
judges’ identity categories operate as ideological cues affecting perceptions of judicial fairness (Bracic et al. 2023)
marginalized identities increase Democrats’ perceptions of fairness, impartiality and trust in SCOTUS
Republicans see gay judges as less fair and impartial than straight judges
descriptive representation seems to matter little
support for international courts is context dependent
but generally tends to be correlated with trust in national courts and adjacent international organizations at the individual level (Stappert and Verhaegen 2025)
Daily Mail re Brexit judgment in Miller (2016)
what drives backlash against international courts? (Madsen et al. 2022)
probably the same thing that drives backlash against domestic courts: disagreement with outcomes
populism is at best a partial explanation (Voeten 2020)
individual-level illiberal views about justice are negatively correlated with trust in the EU, ECtHR and domestic judiciaries (Voeten 2022)
evidence of greater self-restraint in response to backlash
the ECtHR rules less often against most critical governments (Stiansen and Voeten 2020)
the ECtHR restricted the scope of human rights and increased governments’ margin of appreciation (discretion) (Helfer and Voeten 2020)
Donald and Grogan (2025)
POLS0113: Judicial Politics
