Ideology, Values, Social Groups, Cultural Theory, and the Roberts Court

• In Event: Methods and Measures

Abstract

This paper extends recent innovations in scholarship on judicial behavior to study the Roberts Court, including the influence of the three Trump appointees. Scholars using grid-group cultural theory (CT) have advanced study of decision making on the US Supreme Court in the post-World War Two period through the Rehnquist Court (Robinson & Swedlow 2018; Robinson, Swedlow, & Yuan 2022; Robinson, Swedlow, Yuan, & Epping 2023a, 2023b; Swedlow, Robinson, & Yuan 2022), with only one study so far of the Roberts Court (Brough, Liu, & Yeh 2023). Like Robinson, et al. (2023a, 2023b), this paper compares ubiquitous left-right ideological explanations for judicial votes to CT explanations based on the values and social groups supported by case outcomes. This study thus identifies continuities and changes in ideological and cultural sources of judicial behavior through the most recent term including assessment of their relative explanatory power.

Brough, C., Liu, L.-Y., & Yeh, Y.-Y. (2023). Judicial reasoning, individual cultural types, and support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Review of Policy Research, 00, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12579

Robinson, Rob and Brendon Swedlow, “Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Advancing the Study of Judicial Behavior with a Cultural Theory of Political Values,” Journal of Law and Courts, 6(2), 2018: 263-302.

Robinson, Rob, Brendon Swedlow, Meng Yuan, and Cassandra Epping, “A Cultural Theory of Ideological, Political Value, and Group Influences on the U.S. Supreme Court,” Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 2023.

Robinson, Rob, Brendon Swedlow, Meng Yuan, and Cassandra Epping, “Ideological, Political Value, and Group Influences on the U.S. Supreme Court: A Cultural Theory,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, September 2022.

Robinson, Rob, Brendon Swedlow, and Meng Yuan, “Ideology, Values, Cultural Theory, and the United States Supreme Court,” Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 2022.

Swedlow, Brendon, Rob Robinson, and Meng Yuan, “Bringing Courts into Policy Studies and Theory and Policy Theory into Public Law Scholarship on Judicial Policy Making: A Cultural Theory and US Supreme Court Example,” Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 2023.

Authors

• Robert Robinson, California State University, Fullerton

• Brendon Swedlow, Northern Illinois University

• Meng Yuan, Chongqing University

• Ernest Plange Kwofie, Northern Illinois University