How the Intensity of Preference for Ideological Judges Influences Court Support

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241239612
• Author: Christopher N. Krewson,Ryan J. Owens
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 683–695

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241239612

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How the Intensity of Preference for

Ideological Judges Inf‌luences Court

Support

Christopher N. Krewson

1

and Ryan J. Owens

2

Abstract

Recent research shows that many people support courts based on their ideological congruence with those courts and

their decisions. But people likely hold varying degrees of intensity in their preferences for judges who will implement

conservative or liberal policy. We suspect that court support is a function of that intensity. Our results agree. Court

support turns on the intensity with which people prefer conservative, moderate, or liberal judges. In fact, accounting for

the strength with which people prefer ideological judges explains more of their support for courts than some existing

approaches.

Keywords

court support, preference intensity, conjoint

Recent studies show that people support courts more

when they agree with their decisions and less when they

disagree with them (Armaly 2021;Badas 2019;Bartels

and Johnston 2013,2020;Christenson and Glick 2015).

Though not without controversy, those studies analyze

how people’s ideological agreement with case outcomes

inf‌luences their support for courts. While that approach

has expanded our understanding of court support, there is

more work to be done. Here, we examine whether peo-

ple’s support for courts turns on how intensely they want

judges to effectuate liberal or conservative outcomes.

We conducted a survey that exposed respondents to

two hypothetical but highly germane cases, one in which a

court analyzed the legality of a 20-week abortion ban and

one in which it struck or upheld aff‌irmative action in

college admissions. The results reveal, f‌irst, that a sig-

nif‌icant number of Americans intensely desire ideological

judges and, second, that people’s preference intensity for

conservative or liberal judges explains a signif‌icant

amount of their court support. Estimating preference in-

tensity for ideological judges and interacting it with case

outcomes can provide an alternative way of explaining

court support. In fact, the f‌indings here suggest that

supplementing general preference measures with the

strength or intensity of preference for ideological judges

offers more useful information than existing approaches.

Public Support for Courts

Courts have an unusual connection to institutional le-

gitimacy. Unlike off‌icials in elected political institutions,

who may appeal to popular sovereignty, judges must f‌ind

non-electoral and non-political ways to build and sustain

institutional support. Even elected judges must fulf‌ill their

“roles”as judges (Gibson 1978) and satisfy people’s

expectations of how judges ought to behave. By meeting

those expectations, judges and courts can maintain their

legitimacy.

But an obvious question remains: What do people want

from courts and judges? While the question may be ob-

vious, the answer is not. It turns out that people want

different things from judges (Baird 2001;Gibson 2011b,

2012;Gibson and Caldeira 2009a,2012). A few studies

highlight the general variability in the public’s wants and

expectations. People who look at the U.S. Supreme Court

through a political lens are more likely to evaluate it based

1

Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

2

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ryan J. Owens, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 214 North Hall, 1050

Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Email: ryan.owens@wisc.edu