Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Step Forward from Defensive Denials and Aggressive Grants - Are Justices Opinion-Minded when Voting on Certiorari?

标题：从防御性否认和侵略性赠款向前迈出的一步-法官在投票时有意见吗？PI：Jeffrey Segal和Ehud Sommer，SUNY Stony BrookProposal Number 0648209摘要本研究旨在分析美国最高法院的cert决定，是非曲直投票和意见撰写之间的战略关系。 出于政策和法律的原因，法院的意见对大法官来说至关重要。 学术文献表明，对是非曲直的决定对法官制定议程的方式至关重要。然而，大法官非常关心法律，因此，意见，因为他们是判例和政策的后果，潜在地构成另一个战略考虑在cert。 我们研究了1925年《司法法》之后的制度变革是否会激励法官们投票决定他们在决策过程中将要面临的集体行动问题的解决方案。更具体地说，我们探讨了他们在多大程度上投他们的票，对他们的能力，以影响意见书的写作过程的思考。这项研究使用了两个主要的数据来源。首先是Spaeth最高法院数据库。第二个是来自华盛顿国会图书馆大法官论文的数据。 我们在理论上和经验上将美国最高法院多阶段决策过程的三个阶段联系在一起，即证书决定，功绩投票和意见撰写。因此，这项研究增加了我们的知识证书和意见书写作本身，除了提供一个更全面的看法，合议游戏及其制度的前身。该项目还研究了大法官在多大程度上具有战略意义，并更好地解释了由此产生的判例和政策。这样的调查促进了科学进步，并刺激了更丰富，更强大的司法行为理论和相关实证工作的发展。这个项目有可能对司法政治学研究产生更广泛的影响。首先，它审查了一个不常被访问的问题：法院如何设置其议程？其次，本研究的一些见解可以适用于其他（美国和外国）法院的研究。最后，将在网上提供为本研究目的从国会图书馆法官备审记录簿中提取的编码数据，编码方案以及任何原始材料也将提供。后者将服务于学术界的教育和研究目标。

Title: A Step Forward from Defensive Denials and Aggressive Grants - Are Justices Opinion-Minded When Voting on Certiorari?PIs: Jeffrey Segal and Ehud Sommer, SUNY Stony BrookProposal Number 0648209AbstractThis study aims to analyze the strategic relationship between cert decisions, merits votes and opinion writing on the US Supreme Court. For policy and for legal reasons court opinions are of utmost importance for justices. The scholarly literature indicates that the decision on the merits is pivotal to the way justices set their agenda. However, justices care dearly about the law, and thus opinions, consequential as they are to jurisprudence as well as policy, potentially constitute another strategic consideration during cert. We examine whether an institutional change following the Judiciary Act of 1925 motivates Justices to cast their votes on cert thinking about solutions to collective action problems they are about to face during their decision making process. More specifically, we explore the extent to which they cast their vote on cert thinking about their ability to influence the opinion writing process. This study uses two major sources for data. First is the Spaeth Supreme Court databases. Second is data from justices' papers at the Library of Congress in DC. We tie together theoretically and empirically three stages of the multistage decision-making process on the US Supreme Court, Cert decisions, Merits vote and Opinion writing. Thus the study adds to our knowledge of cert and opinion writing in and of themselves, in addition to providing a more comprehensive view of the collegial game and its institutional antecedents. This project also examines the extent to which justices are strategic, and better explains the resulting jurisprudence and policy. Such an inquiry enhances scientific progress and stimulates the development of richer, more powerful theories of judicial behavior and related empirical work.There is a potential for this project to achieve a broader impact on the study of judicial politics. Firstly, it examines an infrequently visited question: how does the court set its agenda? Secondly, some of the insights from this study may be applied to the study of other (American and foreign) courts. Finally, data coded for the purposes of this study from justices' docket books in the Library of Congress will be made available online, and coding scheme as well as any raw material will also be available. The latter will serve both educational and research goals of the academic community writ large.