THE ETIOLOGY OF PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THE SUPREME-COURT
THE ETIOLOGY OF PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THE SUPREME-COURT
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DOI：
10.2307/2111585
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发表时间：
1992-08-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
GIBSON, JL
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
CALDEIRA, GA;GIBSON, JL
像所有的政治机构一样，最高法院需要一些最低程度的支持，因为当高级法官履行其政治和宪法角色时，法官们有时必须反对民意。根据最近一项全国调查的数据，我们重新审视了公众对最高法院的支持程度、来源和解释。由于种族对最高法院的态度差异如此之大，我们在这里只关注美国白人公民的态度。我们的目的既有实质性的，也有方法论的。在实质性方面，我们研究了支持病因的变化。我们研究了对扩散支持的传统解释，但更重要的是，我们引入并评估了一组新变量的力量，即政治价值观。这些政治价值观能很好地预测人们对最高法院的态度。此外，我们特别注意作为法院支持者的“舆论领袖”的重要作用。这些领导人与法院的关系与普通大众的关系大不相同。在方法方面，我们提供了另一种方法来思考和争取大众对法院的广泛支持。最后，我们将推测对法院的广泛支持随着时间的推移而变化的过程，以及更一般地说，大众和舆论领袖对最高法院运作的态度的影响。
The Supreme Court, like all political institutions, requires some minimal level of support because, as the high bench performs its political and constitutional roles, the justices must on occasion stand against the winds of public opinion. With data from a recent national survey, we reexamine the levels, sources, and explanations of public support for the Supreme Court. Since racial differences in attitudes toward the Court are so great, we focus here only on the attitudes of white U. S. citizens. Our purposes are both substantive and methodological. On the substantive front, we examine changes in the etiology of support. We investigate the traditional explanations of diffuse support, but, more important, we introduce and evaluate the power of a new set of variables, political values. These political values do an uncommonly good job of predicting attitudes toward the Court. In addition, we devote particular attention to the important role of "opinion leaders" as supporters of the Court. These leaders relate to the Court in a fashion very different from that of the mass public. On the methodological front, we offer an alternative means of thinking about and capturing diffuse support for the Court among the mass public. We close with speculations about the process by which diffuse support for the Court changes over time and, more generally, the implications of attitudes among the mass public and opinion leaders for the functioning of the Supreme Court.