A Neoinstitutional Theory of Senate Voting on Supreme Court Justices

参议院投票最高法院法官的新制度理论

• 批准号: 8812935
• 负责人: Jeffrey Segal
• 金额: $ 6.09万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-08-01 至 1990-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8812935&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Neoinstitutional; Theory; Senate; Voting; Supreme

Despite the importance of the Senate role in the confirmation of Supreme Court justices, knowledge of the factors affecting the votes of senators is sparse. This project attends to this deficiency by developing a theory of roll call voting that portrays senators as operating primarily in the interests of their consitutents. Senators, however, have their own personal preferences about the composition of the Supreme Court. In addition, presidents can bring rewards and punishments to bear on senators in attempting to influence their vote. Accordingly, senators must weigh the costs and benefits of 1) supporting the opposing constituent desires, 2) pursuing their own policy goals, and 3) supporting or opposing the president's nominee. To assess the weight senators put on the various actors seeking to influence their vote on confirmation, this project develops a testable model of how public opinion, the perceived ideology of the nominee, and the political circumstances surrounding the nomination came together to influence a senator's vote. Components of the model include the popularity and power of the president, the ideological preferences of both senators and their constituents, the ideology and qualifications of the nominee, and the importance of the open seat on the Court. The theory is tested on the 2,214 individual confirmation votes from Tom Clark (1949) through Anthony Kennedy (1988). The chief technique used to test the theory is probit analysis, an approach that permits the estimation of how important various factors are in determining whether or not a senator votes to confirm a nominee's appointment to the Court. The research improves on earlier investigations in several respects. It focuses on a significant period of change for the Court, not just on the events surrounding a particular nomination. It attempts to explain the votes of individual senators, not just the Senate as a whole. It casts its net widely to include not only controversial nominations but noncontroversial ones as well. It takes seriously the notion that a nominee's ideology and qualifications for the Court may prove to be major influences on a senator's confirmation vote. In exploring the role that these factors play as vote determinants, the research develops measures for perceived ideology and qualifications. The project assesses these factors through a systematic content analysis of major newspaper editorials on each nominee. The theory underlying the model tested in the project - - "principal- agency theory" - - has proved to be useful in numerous other contexts. The theory has not previously been developed, however, to explore how institutional and political circumstances actually work to affect a legislator's voting decision. Thus, the theory itself should be enriched by this novel extension and application. The research, therefore, has broad theoretical payoffs as well as helping us understand better the dynamics of a major part of the confirmation process.

尽管参议院在确认最高法院法官方面的作用很重要，但人们对影响参议员投票的因素知之甚少。该项目通过发展唱名表决理论来弥补这一缺陷，该理论将参议员描绘为主要为其同意的利益而运作。然而，参议员们对最高法院的组成有自己的个人偏好。此外，总统可以对试图影响参议员投票的参议员施加奖励和惩罚。因此，参议员必须权衡1)支持反对选民的愿望，2)追求自己的政策目标，3)支持或反对总统提名人的代价和好处。为了评估参议员对寻求在确认时影响他们投票的各种行为者的权重，这个项目开发了一个可测试的模型，说明公众舆论、被提名人的感知意识形态以及围绕提名的政治环境如何结合在一起影响参议员的投票。该模型的组成部分包括总统的受欢迎程度和权力、参议员及其选民的意识形态偏好、被提名人的意识形态和资格，以及最高法院空缺席位的重要性。这一理论在汤姆·克拉克(1949年)和安东尼·肯尼迪(1988年)的2214张个人确认票上得到了检验。用来检验这一理论的主要技术是概率分析，这种方法允许估计各种因素在决定参议员是否投票确认提名进入最高法院的过程中有多重要。这项研究在几个方面改进了早期的调查。它侧重于法院的一个重大变革时期，而不仅仅是围绕某一特定提名的事件。它试图解释个别参议员的投票，而不仅仅是整个参议院的投票。它广泛撒网，不仅包括有争议的提名，也包括无争议的提名。它认真对待被提名人的意识形态和对最高法院的资格可能被证明是对参议员的确认投票的重大影响的概念。在探索这些因素作为投票决定因素的作用时，该研究开发了感知意识形态和资格的测量方法。该项目通过对每个提名者的主要报纸社论进行系统的内容分析来评估这些因素。在该项目中测试的模型背后的理论--“委托代理理论”--已被证明在许多其他情况下是有用的。然而，这一理论此前并未被用来探索制度和政治环境如何实际影响立法者的投票决定。因此，这种新颖的扩展和应用应该丰富理论本身。因此，这项研究具有广泛的理论收益，并帮助我们更好地了解确认过程的主要部分的动态。