Political scientists are often called upon to estimate models in which the standard
assumption that the data are conditionally independent can be called into question. I review …

At the heart of attitudinal and strategic explanations of judicial behavior is the assumption
that justices have policy preferences. In this paper we employ Markov chain Monte Carlo …

The attitudinal model holds that personal policy preferences are the strongest influence,
limited by the facts (stimuli) of the controversy at hand, on how a judge will rule on the merits …

From local trial courts to the United States Supreme Court, judges' decisions affect the fates
of individual litigants and the fate of the nation as a whole. Scholars have long discussed …

What role do courts play in the establishment and maintenance of constitutional
democracies? To address this question, we elaborate a model that draws on existing …

Although scholars increasingly acknowledge a contemporaneous relationship between
public opinion and Supreme Court decisions, debate continues as to why this relationship …

The hallmark of the new positive theories of the judiciary is that Supreme Court justices will
frequently defer to the preferences of Congress when making decisions, particularly in …

One hundred forty books, articles, dissertations, and conference papers are identified in the
legal and political science literatures between 1959 and 1998 reporting empirical research …

The Politics of Precedent on the US Supreme Court offers an insightful and provocative
analysis of the Supreme Court's most important task--shaping the law. Thomas Hansford …

[Behavioral research has] the potential to engender serious confusion over judicial decision
making. Even worse,[it] may mislead the unsuspecting... into thinking that judges are lawless …