The Constraining Capacity of Law on the U.S. Supreme Court

法律的原则真的限制了最高法院法官的选择吗？大法官的意识形态偏好是否主导了他们的决定？"法律与意识形态"之争为这些问题提供了相互矛盾的答案。所缺少的是对法律的学说限制法官根据其意识形态偏好行事的能力的更全面的解释。目前的项目旨在提供一个全面的理论和实证研究的法律的学说对司法决策的影响。取决于推定法律的学说如何产生结果，一些法律的规则和标准可能会限制意识形态上的自由裁量权，而另一些规则和标准可能实际上会加强这种自由裁量权。目前的研究测试竞争的模型和假设，如何在法律的学说的推定的变化影响意识形态的自由裁量权，从而意识形态投票的程度。该项目将审查过去六十年来法官在多个法律的问题领域的大量案件中的投票行为。将使用多水平统计模型分析数据。本研究的发现将有助于更丰富地理解判断。更广泛地说，关于"游戏规则"如何以及何时约束政治行为者的见解，有助于更好地概念化法院在民主进程中的作用。

Does legal doctrine genuinely constrain the choices Supreme Court justices make? Do justices' ideological preferences dominate their decisions? The "law versus ideology" debate provides conflicting answers to these questions. What is missing is a fuller accounting of the capacity of legal doctrine to constrain justices from acting on the basis of their ideological preferences. The current project aspires to provide a comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of legal doctrine's impact on judicial decision making. Depending on how presumptive legal doctrine is of an outcome, some legal rules and standards may constrain ideological discretion, while others may actually enhance such discretion. The current research tests competing models and hypotheses regarding how variation in the presumptiveness of legal doctrine influences ideological discretion and hence the degree of ideological voting. The project will examine justices' voting behavior in a large number of cases within multiple legal issue areas spanning the prior sixty years. The data will be analyzed using multi-level statistical models. The findings of this research will facilitate a richer understanding of judging. More broadly, the insights regarding how and when the "rules of the game" constrain political actors are informative in better conceptualizing the role of courts in the democratic process.