Ideological Divergence and Public Support for the Supreme Court

Abstract

We examine the degree to which aggregate-level support for the Supreme Court is a function of its divergence from the ideological mood of the country. We first overcome the problem of irregular and infrequent measurement of attitudes toward the Supreme Court by employing an approach developed by Stimson (1991) which allows us to pool seventeen similar survey items administered a total of ninety-three times to produce a single, semi-annual time series of support for the Supreme Court, extending from 1973 through 1993. We then consider the effect of the Court's ideological position on the level of support it enjoys. In contrast to previous research, we take into account that both the Court's and the public's ideological preferences vary over time. Our analysis indicates that the public's appraisal of the Supreme Court responds not to the Court's ideological position per se, but rather to the extent to which the Court's position diverges from the ideological preferences of the citizenry; when the Court deviates from the public mood, its support erodes. Scholars have long been interested in determining and explaining levels of public support for the Supreme Court. As a result, we know a great deal about the determinants of individual-level attitudes toward the Supreme Court (cf. Mondak and Grosskopf 1998; Caldeira and Gibson 1992; and references therein). We know less, however, about the ebb and flow of Court support over time (but see Mondak and Smithey 1997; Caldeira 1986, 1987). A major obstacle to studying the dynamics of Court support has been the infrequent and inconsistent manner in which survey organizations have queried citizens' attitudes toward the Court. Here, we offer an approach to the available data that allows us to measure support for the Supreme Court on a semi-annual basis over a twenty-year period. We then use this unique series to model Court support as a function of its divergence from the public's ideological mood. In contrast to past work, we take into account that both the Court's ideological position and the public mood vary over time and focus on the shifting divergence and convergence of the two as an explanation for changes in support for the Supreme Court.