Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 751-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Franklin ◽  
Liane C. Kosaki
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Roe V Wade

The United States Supreme Court has a historical role as a “republican schoolmaster,” inculcating virtues in the citizenry. The role as teacher to the republic also serves the interests of the Court. As the “weakest branch,” the Supreme Court needs public support if its decisions are to be effective. We investigate the Court's ability to win popular support for its rulings, specifically in the case of Roe v. Wade. The analysis shows that the Court's decision did affect public attitudes but not as previous work would predict. While support for abortions to protect health increased as a result of the Court's decision, the public became more polarized over “discretionary” abortions. The puzzle is what process can account for these disparate reactions. We develop a theory resting on interpersonal influences to explain these results, arguing that the social interpretation of events drives the differing outcomes. This theory is then tested against a purely psychological alternative. The closing discussion considers how these results can be extended to the general problem of public decisions and popular responses, including presidential actions and the influence of the media.

Television Coverage of the Israeli Supreme Court 1968-1992: The Persistence of the Mythical Image

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Or Bassok
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
News Media ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Institutional Legitimacy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Channel One ◽  
The Media ◽  
Israeli Supreme Court ◽  
Television Coverage ◽  
Politically Active

During the 1980s the Israeli Supreme Court went through revolutionary changes, becoming more active in public life and in the political arena. Scholars predicted that the institutional legitimacy of the Court, based on its image as an objective, neutral, and apolitical institution, would decline following these changes. However, public polls showed that the Court's institutional legitimacy remained very high long after the 1980s. This Article aims to explain the lack of a decline in the institutional legitimacy of the Court during those years by presenting an empirical study of the Court's news television coverage beginning with the inception of Channel One (1968) until just before the entrance of the commercially financed Channel Two (1993). The Article shows that the increase in the visibility of the Court was not substantial enough to diminish the Court's image. Moreover, television continued to present the Court, by and large, through a mythical perspective as an objective, neutral, and apolitical body. The Article concludes that the Israeli public, unaware of the changes in the Court's adjudication, continued to award the Court support based on the Court's unchanged fabled image presented by the news media. Hence, a politically active court may continue to receive high public support based on in its mythical image if the changes in its adjudication are not visible to the public. Research of the portrayal of courts in the media is thus of utmost importance in understanding changes in the institutional legitimacy of courts.

Mechanisms of Morality

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 1814-1842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Kreps ◽  
Sarah Maxey
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Humanitarian Crises

Humanitarian interventions (HIs) are a common aspect of US foreign policy. Policy makers acknowledge the importance of public support for interventions, but scholars remain divided about the extent and basis of that support. Using a series of survey experiments, we evaluate attitudes about HIs, assess whether the public supports these interventions for instrumental or moral reasons, and test which aspects of morality are most salient. The findings indicate that interventions addressing humanitarian crises boost public support, with the basis of that support residing primarily in normative contentions that the United States has a moral obligation to protect civilians. This research advances understandings of morality in foreign policy, mediates debates about the determinants of public attitudes—including when the public makes moral rather than prudent decisions about interventions—and has important policy implications. It suggests a morally motivated public may be more likely to support risky HIs, increasing the likelihood of using force.

scholarly journals The Hidden American Nativist Consensus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ifedapo Thompson ◽  
Christopher Dinkel
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
American Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Expectations ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Eligibility Requirement ◽  
The U.S

Nativism has received recent attention because of its salience in American politics, but it dates back to the early days of the Republic. We show nativist sentiments were established in the citizenship-eligibility requirement for the presidency have since been mirrored in the American public’s preferences outside of the executive. We argue that the inclusion of the natural born citizen clause in the U.S. Constitution helped set in motion public expectations for legislative and judicial office holders. Then, with a novel dataset, we show Americans who were not born in the United States have been severely underrepresented in Congress and on the Supreme Court. Finally, using two conjoint designs, we show candidates for Congress and the Supreme Court who fit a nativist mold are preferred by the public across party lines. Overall, we argue a nativist consensus exists in the public which could exacerbate inequalities of representation within American politics.

Borrowing Support for War: The Effect of War Finance on Public Attitudes toward Conflict

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 997-1020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo A. Flores-Macías ◽  
Sarah E. Kreps
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
War Finance ◽  
Financial Burdens ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Relationship

How does the way states finance wars affect public support for conflict? Most existing research has focused on costs as casualties rather than financial burdens, and arguments that do speak to the cost in treasure either minimize potential differences between the two main forms of war finance—debt and taxes—or imply that war taxes do not dent support for war among a populace rallying around the fiscal flag. Using original experiments conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, we evaluate the relationship between war finance and support for war. We find that how states finance wars has an important effect on support for war and that the gap in support resulting from different modes of war finance holds across the main democracies engaging in conflict, regardless of the type of war or individuals’ party identification. The findings have important implications for theories of democratic accountability in wartime and the conduct of conflict, since borrowing shields the public from the direct costs of war and in turn reduces opposition to it, giving leaders greater latitude in how they carry out war.

Once and Future Wetlands

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
National Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Degree

A societal conflict as prolonged and complex as the reversal of national policy on wetlands in the United States must contain some lessons for the future. Perhaps we are still too close to the issues to have everything in perspective historically, but two lessons seem obvious. One of these has to do with the channelizing effect of change in public attitudes toward wetlands and the other with the stabilizing effect of science on regulations and policies intended for the protection of wetlands. A look back at the previous chapters suggests that the history of wetland policy in the United States can be divided into three eras: a classical era during which removal was the policy; a modern era during which protection was the policy; and a new era, which appears to be postmodern in the sense that we adjust protection qualitatively in an attempt to make our coexistence with wetlands more comfortable. Politics of the removal era appear to have been relatively tranquil, as congressional action surrounding wetlands developed almost entirely through consultation with a single interest group (i.e., those who saw some economically beneficial potential in federal progams subsidizing or encouraging the removal of wetlands; Tzoumis 1998). The desire for protection, although present in some circles much earlier, became politically potent in parallel with the growth of general public support for environmental legislation. From that time forward, legislation and national policy have consistently been formed in an atmosphere of strongly opposing viewpoints, but the protectionist impulse has prevailed. It seems doubtful now that an open legislative assault on wetland protection would be successful, simply because the public has fully absorbed the idea of protection for about a generation. The fundamental intent of protectionism, however, still could be subverted judicially or administratively; this is the main issue for the future. From 1970 to the present, the politics of wetlands has seemed unstable and even chaotic. Participants in the contest over wetlands typically have viewed the future with a high degree of pessimism. This is especially true for the defenders of wetlands, who fear, and in some cases almost anticipate, reactionary backsliding.

27. Immigration and other evils: A profile of Dr. C. K. Clarke and the eugenics movement in Canada

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
L. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Mentally Ill ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Canadian Population ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Eugenics Movement ◽  
The Government ◽  
Mental Defectives

Dr. C.K. Clarke (1857-1924) was one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. He sought to improve the conditions of asylums, helped to legitimize psychiatry and established formal training for nurses. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Canada experienced a surge of immigration. Yet – as many historians have shown – a widespread anti-foreigner sentiment within the public remained. Along with many other members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and campaigned to restrict immigration. He appealed to the government to track immigrants and deport them once they showed signs of mental illness. Clarke’s efforts lead to amendments to the Immigration Act in 1919, which authorized deportation of people who were not Canadian-born, regardless of how many years that had been in Canada. This change applied not only to the mentally ill but also to those who could no longer work due to injury and to those who did not follow social norms. Clarke is a fascinating example of how we judge historical figures. He lived in a time where what we now think of as xenophobia was a socially acceptable, even worthy attitude. As a leader in eugenics, therefore, he was a progressive. Other biographers have recognized Clarke’s racist opinions, some of whom justify them as keeping with the social values of his era. In further exploring Clarke’s interest in these issues, this paper relies on his personal scrapbooks held in the CAMH archives. These documents contain personal papers, poems and stories that proclaim his anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views. Whether we allow his involvement in the eugenics movement to overshadow his accomplishments or ignore his racist leanings to celebrate his memory is the subject of ongoing debate. Dowbiggin IR. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. McLaren A. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada 1885-1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. Roberts B. Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.

Evolution of the public administration system. The Republic of Estonia

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 82-118
Author(s):  
YANA TOOM ◽  
◽  
VALENTINA V. KOMLEVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Administration System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic

The article studies the main stages and features of the evolution of the public administration system in the Republic of Estonia after 1992. This paper presents brief geographical and socio-economic characteristics that largely determine the development of the country’s public administration. The evolution of the institution of the presidency, executive, and legislative powers are considered. The role of parliament and mechanisms for coordinating the interests of different groups of the population for the development of the country is especially emphasized. The authors analyze the state and administrative reforms of recent years, which were aimed at improving the quality of services provided to the population, increasing the competitiveness of different parts of Estonia, as well as optimizing public spending and management structure. The introduction of digital technologies into the sphere of public administration, healthcare, education, and the social sphere is of a notable place. Such phenomena as e-residency, e-federation, and other digital projects are considered. The development of a digital system of interstate interaction between Estonia and Finland made it possible to create the world’s first e-federation, and the digitization of all strategically important information and its transfer to cloud storage speaks of the creation of the world’s first e-residency, a special residence of data outside the country’s borders to ensure digital continuity and statehood in the event of critical malfunctions or external threats.

Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The U.S

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.

An analysis of media discourse on genetically modified rice in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 175048132098209
Author(s):  
Quan Zheng ◽  
Zengyi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Gm Rice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Specific Meaning

Current problems and controversies involving GM issues are not limited to scientific fields but spill over into the social context. When disagreements enter society via media outlets, social factors such as interests, resources, and values can contribute to complicating discourse about a controversial subject. Using the framework for the analysis of media discourse proposed by Carvalho, this paper examines news reports on Chinese GM rice from the dimensions of both text and context, covering the period of 2001–2015. This study shows that media may not only construct basic concepts, theme, and discursive strategies but also generate an ideological stance. This ideology constituted an influential dimension of the GM rice controversy. By following ideology consistent with the dominant position of the Chinese government, the media selectively constructed and endowed GM rice with a specific meaning in the Chinese social context, making possible the reproduction and communication of GM rice knowledge and risks to the public.

Public Opinion and the U.S. Supreme Court: FDR's Court-packing Plan

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 1139-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Caldeira
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
Gallup Poll ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Historical Episode ◽  
The Mass Media

I show the intimate connection between the actions of the justices and support for the Supreme Court during one of the most critical periods of U.S. political history, the four months of 1937 during which Franklin D. Roosevelt sought legislation to “pack” the high bench with friendly personnel. Over the period from 3 February through 10 June 1937, the Gallup Poll queried national samples on 18 separate occasions about FDR's plan. These observations constitute the core of my analyses. I demonstrate the crucial influence of judicial behavior and the mass media in shaping public opinion toward the Supreme Court. This research illuminates the dynamics of public support for the justices, contributes to a clearer understanding of an important historical episode, shows the considerable impact of the mass media on public attitudes toward the Court, and adds more evidence on the role of political events in the making of public opinion.

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