RAPID: Supreme Court Support and Democratic Values

RAPID：最高法院的支持和民主价值观

• 批准号: 2226543
• 负责人: Matthew Hitt
• 金额: $ 9.27万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-01 至 2023-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2226543&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Supreme; Court; Support; Democratic

The Supreme Court of the United States is one of the most powerful institutions within the American political system – exercising authority over life, liberty, and property. While granted these powers by law and political tradition, the Court’s legitimacy in making these weighty decisions rests, in no small part, on the public accepting that the Court is “above” politics. In other words, despite creating “winners” and “losers” when issuing decisions, ordinary people seem to believe two things: (1) the Court’s members were chosen via fair, democratic processes, and (2) differences in opinion are due to conflicting Constitutional interpretations rather than the naked partisan preferences of Justices. These assumptions, however, have been sorely tested in recent years. From brutal, polarized confirmation hearings to questions about candidates’ fitness to serve, and controversial, highly visible decisions, some citizens may not see the Court as the same backstop for democratic values that it was in the mid-20th Century. These developments raise thorny questions about the sources of public support for the Supreme Court more generally. We investigate whether citizens’ democratic beliefs are connected to their views about the Court’s legitimacy, and, in turn, whether those attitudes are affected by the Court’s decisions.To explore the relationship between public views about democracy and their support for the Court, this research will deploy a four-wave panel survey that will allow researchers to (1) test whether democratic values correspond to diffuse support via a rigorous panel design and, (2) analyze whether highly salient decisions affect the Court’s legitimacy, generally, and whether such decisions affect the relationship between democratic values and Court support, specifically. By collecting a combination of original survey, panel, and experimental data, this research supplies a rare opportunity to obtain contemporaneous public reactions to a series of high-profile decisions that the Court will most likely issue during the summer of 2022, which bookends a period of sincere political and democratic upheaval. Despite political scientists’ concern about democratic backsliding, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of the judiciary in deepening public cynicism about democracy. This research not only represents a significant step forward in understanding basic theories of why citizens respect the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, but it offers a chance to analyze how a potentially counter-majoritarian political institution may be contributing to this country’s ongoing crisis of democracy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

美国最高法院是美国政治制度中最强大的机构之一 - 行使生命，自由和财产的权威。法院在法律和政治传统中授予这些权力时，在做出这些重大裁决的合法性在很大程度上取决于公众接受法院“上述”政治。换句话说，尽管在发布决定时创造了“赢家”和“失败者”，但普通百姓似乎相信两件事：（1）法院的成员是通过公平的民主进程和（2）意见差异选择的，这是由于宪法解释矛盾而不是裸露的党派偏好。但是，这些假设近年来已经进行了深入的测试。从残酷的，两极分化的确认听证会到有关候选人的服务和有争议的，高度可见的决定的问题，一些公民可能不会将法院视为20世纪中叶的民主价值观。这些事态发展提出了有关最高法院公共支持来源的棘手问题。 We investigate whether citizens’ democratic beliefs are connected to their views about the Court’s legitimacy, and, in turn, whether those attendees are affected by the Court’s decisions.To explore the relationship between public views about democracy and their Support for the Court, this research will deploy a four-wave panel survey that will allow researchers to (1) test whether democratic values ​​correspond to diffuse support via a rigorous panel design and, (2) analyze whether highly salient decisions affect the Court’s通常，合法性以及此类决定是否影响民主价值观与法院支持之间的关系。通过收集原始调查，小组和实验数据的结合，这项研究提供了一个难得的机会，以获得当代公共反应，以对一系列备受瞩目的决定，法院很可能会在2022年夏季发表，这是一个真诚的政治和民主动荡的时期。尽管政治科学家对民主反向游荡的关注，但对司法机构在加深公开对民主的愤世嫉俗中的作用的关注不足。这项研究不仅代表了理解公民为何尊重最高法院合法性的基本理论的重要一步，而且还提供了一个机会，可以分析如何在该国持续的民主危机中贡献潜在的反宗教政治机构，这是对NSF的法定任务的审查，并通过评估范围来表现出色的智力。