TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting drift on politically insulated institutions
T2 - A study of ideological drift on the United States Supreme Court
AU - Owens, Ryan J.
AU - Wedeking, Justin
PY - 2012/4
Y1 - 2012/4
N2 - Elected officials have difficulty controlling politically insulated institutions, leaving the appointment process as perhaps their most effective means of influence. Yet, history shows that actors on these institutionsespecially the Supreme Courtoften behave unpredictably. Our goal is to determine whether variation in two components of cognitive style, prior to a justices nomination to the Court, predicts ideological drift once on the Court. Using linguistic software created by cognitive psychologists, we examined over 1000 speeches, articles, and separate opinions written by Supreme Court justices before they were nominated to the Court. Our results show that justices whose prenomination words revealed cognitive inconsistency drift more than those with stable world views.
AB - Elected officials have difficulty controlling politically insulated institutions, leaving the appointment process as perhaps their most effective means of influence. Yet, history shows that actors on these institutionsespecially the Supreme Courtoften behave unpredictably. Our goal is to determine whether variation in two components of cognitive style, prior to a justices nomination to the Court, predicts ideological drift once on the Court. Using linguistic software created by cognitive psychologists, we examined over 1000 speeches, articles, and separate opinions written by Supreme Court justices before they were nominated to the Court. Our results show that justices whose prenomination words revealed cognitive inconsistency drift more than those with stable world views.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0022381611001691
DO - 10.1017/S0022381611001691
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84861072993
SN - 0022-3816
VL - 74
SP - 487
EP - 500
JO - Journal of Politics
JF - Journal of Politics
IS - 2
ER -