3: Judicial Preferences and Decisions
How do judges’ preferences manifest in their decisions? This week we dive into the empirical literature documenting the heterogeneity of judicial preferences and their reconciliation on court panels across a variety of political and judicial contexts.
Mandatory readings
Hanretty, Chris. “Dissent in Iberia: The ideal points of justices on the Spanish and Portuguese Constitutional Tribunals.” European Journal of Political Research 51, no. 5 (2012): 671-692.
Optional readings
Smith, Joseph L., and Emerson H. Tiller. “The strategy of judging: Evidence from administrative law.” The Journal of Legal Studies 31, no. 1 (2002): 61-82.
Hanretty, Chris. “The decisions and ideal points of British Law Lords.” British Journal of Political Science 43, no. 3 (2013): 703-716.
Beim, Deborah, Tom S. Clark, and Benjamin E. Lauderdale. “Republican-majority appellate panels increase execution rates for capital defendants.” The Journal of Politics 83, no. 3 (2021): 1163-1167.
Ash, Elliott, and Michael Poyker. “Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to the Fox News Channel.” The Economic Journal 134, no. 660 (2024): 1331-1355.
Spirig, Judith. “When issue salience affects adjudication: evidence from Swiss asylum appeal decisions.” American Journal of Political Science 67, no. 1 (2023): 55-70.
Hanretty, Chris. “Judicial disagreement need not be political: dissent on the Estonian Supreme Court.” Europe-Asia Studies 67, no. 6 (2015): 970-988.
Hanretty, Chris. “The Bulgarian Constitutional Court as an additional legislative chamber.” East European Politics and Societies 28, no. 3 (2014): 540-558.
Ash, Elliott, Daniel L. Chen, and Sergio Galletta. “Measuring judicial sentiment: Methods and application to US circuit courts.” Economica 89, no. 354 (2022): 362-376.
Bonica, Adam, and Maya Sen. “Estimating judicial ideology.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 35, no. 1 (2021): 97-118.
Yu, Tinghua, and Elliott Ash. “Political Polarization and Judicial Selection.” Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 4, no. 1 (2023): 1-27.
Ash, Elliott, Daniel L. Chen, and Suresh Naidu. Ideas have consequences: The impact of law and economics on American justice. No. w29788. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022.