Collaborative Research: Testing Models of Representation and Institutional Design in the State Courts' Consideration of Inequality

该项目旨在创建一个新的司法判决数据库，衡量自1971年以来所有50个州十几个政策领域中与不平等相关的所有政策，并测试有关州最高法院在何种条件下采取行动的一系列猜测。减轻或加剧不平等。 特别是，该项目将使用统计分析来测试的假设，一个国家的偏好？美国公民对不平等问题的看法影响最高法院的裁决。我们进一步预计，这种关系取决于该州选择和保留法官的方法。因为项目？该项目的时间框架包括利益集团参与司法选举和电视广告的增加，该项目还将调查司法选举日益政治化如何影响司法对公众舆论的反应。 总的来说，分析将能够确定更大的司法问责是否会导致对大众和/或有组织的利益作出更大的反应。因此，这项研究将揭示美国各州社会、政治、法律的和经济不平等的原因。

This project aims to create a new database of judicial decisions, to measure all policies relevant to inequality in a dozen or so policy domains, in all 50 states since 1971, and to test a series of conjectures about the conditions under which the state supreme courts act to mitigate or aggravate inequality. In particular, the project will use statistical analyses to test the hypothesis that the preferences of a state?s citizenry on matters of inequality affect supreme court decisions. We further expect that this relationship depends on the methods used to select and retain judges in the state. Because the project?s timeframe encompasses the rise of interest group involvement and television advertising in judicial election, the project will also investigate how the increasing politicization of judicial elections has affected judicial responsiveness to public opinion. Overall, the analysis will be able to determine whether greater judicial accountability results in greater responsiveness to the mass public and/or to organized interests. Thus, this study will shed important new light on the causes of social, political, legal, and economic inequality in the states of the United States.