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Taking Judicial Legitimacy Seriously
No full textChief Justice Roberts appears worried about judicial legitimacy. In Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, he explicitly worries about the message the Court would send if it wades into the gerrymandering debate. More explicitly, he worries about “the status and integrity” of the Court if is seen as taking sides in politically charged controversies. Similarly, during his confirmation hearing, Roberts warned that the Court has a limited role in our constitutional scheme and must stay within it. To decide cases on the basis of policy and not law would compromise the Court’s legitimacy. This Essay is skeptical. For one, social science research makes clear that the legitimacy of the Court is not compromised so long as the Justices exercise their authority in a principled way. What the Justices may not do is be perceived as behaving strategically. Note the irony. In recent years, Chief Justice Roberts, and particularly his opinion in Sebelius, is seen as the high water mark of strategic decisionmaking. A second view of judicial legitimacy equates legitimacy with compliance and acceptance of judicial outcomes precisely because the Court issues them. The data is complex but history is also on the Court’s side. Consider in this vein the reception to Baker v. Carr, or Bush v. Gore, or Shelby County v. Holder. Why does Chief Justice Roberts raise concerns about judicial legitimacy? The Essay concludes that this is in itself a strategic move and a selective concern. There is very little the Court can do to compromise its legitimacy. Concerns about judicial legitimacy are either ignorant of what judicial legitimacy is and the vast body of work that explains it, or else it is a feigned worry designed to disguise a substantive agenda
The rise of a concept: Judicial independence in the *American national experiment, 1789--1835.
No full textThe concept of judicial independence has become the sine qua non of the judicial craft. This dissertation explores this revered concept. In particular, it looks to the rise of an independent judiciary in the American national context from 1787 and the framing of the Constitution to the end of Chief justice Marshall's tenure in office in 1835. In so doing it reaches two general conclusions. First, the concept of judicial independence is invoked much too easily by those seeking to protect judicial officers from criticism and outright attack. The impeachment of Justice Chase by a Republican majority in Congress offers a particularly poignant illustration of this view. The Judiciary Act of 1801 and the subsequent Repeal Act of 1802 may be similarly catalogued. Second, independent federal judges must be aware of political circumstances and public opinion winds. In making this claim, this dissertation reaches two further conclusions. One, judicial independence is often a chimera, a much more difficult goal for our judicial institutions than often perceived. Examples of this proposition abound. The cases of Marbury versus Madison and Stuart versus Laird, instances when the Court proved unwilling to test the mettle of the leading political coalitions of its day, make exactly this point. And two, our federal structure affects our understanding of judicial independence in significant ways. Put simply, it makes a world of difference whether the Court speaks to other branches of the national government, as in the treason trial of Aaron Burr, or to state courts, as in the litigation over the Fairfax Estate that resulted in Martin versus Hunter's Lessee and Cohens versus Virginia. Rather paradoxically, this argument concludes that the federal courts have a much more difficult time when demanding compliance from state actors. In this context, the Court's judgment is crucial. In this arena, the Court may not impose its will, for resistance is a likely response; instead, it must persuade. From the historical record, it is clear that the states have proven to be a very difficult audience.PhDAmerican historyLawPolitical scienceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127634/2/3029339.pd
Of Platonic Guardians, Trust, and Equality: A Comment on Hansen\u27s Minimalist Approach to the Law of Elections;Symposium
Full text linkTaking Judicial Legitimacy Seriously
No full textChief Justice Roberts appears worried about judicial legitimacy. In Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, he explicitly worries about the message the Court would send if it wades into the gerrymandering debate. More explicitly, he worries about “the status and integrity” of the Court if is seen as taking sides in politically charged controversies. Similarly, during his confirmation hearing, Roberts warned that the Court has a limited role in our constitutional scheme and must stay within it. To decide cases on the basis of policy and not law would compromise the Court’s legitimacy. This Essay is skeptical. For one, social science research makes clear that the legitimacy of the Court is not compromised so long as the Justices exercise their authority in a principled way. What the Justices may not do is be perceived as behaving strategically. Note the irony. In recent years, Chief Justice Roberts, and particularly his opinion in Sebelius, is seen as the high water mark of strategic decisionmaking. A second view of judicial legitimacy equates legitimacy with compliance and acceptance of judicial outcomes precisely because the Court issues them. The data is complex but history is also on the Court’s side. Consider in this vein the reception to Baker v. Carr, or Bush v. Gore, or Shelby County v. Holder. Why does Chief Justice Roberts raise concerns about judicial legitimacy? The Essay concludes that this is in itself a strategic move and a selective concern. There is very little the Court can do to compromise its legitimacy. Concerns about judicial legitimacy are either ignorant of what judicial legitimacy is and the vast body of work that explains it, or else it is a feigned worry designed to disguise a substantive agenda
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Judicial Intervention As Judicial Restraint
No full textThis paper examines the Court's decision in Gill v. Whitford. It advances two claims. First, it provides a comprehensive account of the Court's skepticism of judicial supervision of democratic politics, an account that we call the narrative of nonintervention. It situates Gill within that account and argues that the Court's reluctance to intervene is a function of the Court's institutional calculus that it ought to protect its legitimacy and institutional capital when it engages in what look like political fights. Second, the paper provides an instrumentalist account for judicial intervention. It argues that the Court should intervene to prevent partisan gerrymanders, not only because partisan gerrymandering is harmful, but also because of what partisan gerrymandering communicates about the normativity of the manipulation of electoral rules for partisan gain
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