Intracourt dialogue: The impact of us supreme court dissents

Publication Title

Journal of Law and Courts

ISSN

21646570

E-ISSN

44855

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Dissenting opinions are part of the ongoing constitutional dialogue among elites both inside and out of the judiciary. In order to illustrate how dissents contribute to the ongoing constitutional dialogue among elites, we examine the effect of dissents on majority opinions in the US Supreme Court. We empirically assess their operation on the contemporary Court. We find that dissents with certain characteristics are more effective than others on prompting the majority opinion to cite and discuss them. Specifically, majority opinions cite and discuss dissents that have a negative emotional tone; contain formal, logical, and hierarchical thinking; use adverbs; have a mixed ideological coalition; and cite a high number of Supreme Court precedents. These results suggest that strategic dissenters will have more in-house impact than others.

First Page

28

Last Page

50

Publication Date

3-1-2020

DOI

10.1086/704739

Department

Department of Political Science

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS