According to Segal, Spaeth & Harold (p. 53) “At the core of a constitutive approach to Supreme Court decision making are the following six major premises: First, the Court does not follow elections or politics, but views itself as autonomous from direct and indirect political pressure. Second, justices do not follow personal policy wants. Third, respect for precedent and principled decision making are central to Supreme Court decision-making.” This is important to understand when trying to understand the attitudinal and strategic model. The conventional explanation for these theories is that 1) Attitudinal model are political ideologies regarding the judges identify as either conservative and liberal. Also, the attitudinal model also explains
…show more content…
111) states that “Attitudinalists argue that because legal rules governing decision making (e.g., precedent, plain meaning) in the cases that come to the Court do not limit discretion; because the justices need not respond to public opinion, Congress, or the President; and because the Supreme Court is the court of last resort, the justices, unlike their lower court colleagues, may freely implement their personal policy preferences as the attitudinal model specifies.” In the event of the Attitudinal model, The ideological views of the judge and his policy preferences can have a profound effect on his decision-making than the law. This helps with understanding the strength of the Attitudinal model because it’s not all about ulterior motive, other things play a huge role. With what was mentioned in lecture, it was stated that sometimes attitudinal model could be helpful when trying to achieve a favorable outcome, align with your political ideologies or get a decision overturned. This is so because a judge might use that to either show his political and policy position, get the judge or judges in line and sometimes show what way the court is leaning in terms of if the tribunal is made up of majority or minority liberal or conservative or where what judges stands in terms of landmark cases like Roe v. Wade etc. focuses on the vote of merits. Segal, Spaeth & Harold (p. 111) states that “while the attitudinal model limits the justices to policy goals, …show more content…
It’s not so much more about the outcome and the decision reached is based on morality, obligations, ideologies or the facts of the case but rather the distinctly making the decision based on strategy. How the decision is going to affect the court legitimacy wise, how the outside power is going to intervene like the president or even the Congress disagreeing with them in one way or the other and also how the case is going to bolster their popularity. All in all, strategic model is more about the politics and policies than it is so much about what’s right or wrong. The strategic theory focuses on both the vote on certiorari and the vote on the merit. Segal, Spaeth & Harold (p. 97) pointed out that the “choice paradigm represents an attempt to apply and adapt the theories and methods of economics to the entire range of human political and social interactions. Because of the scope of this paradigm, innumerable rational choice models that rest on a common set of assumptions exist. While scholars might quibble about the core of rational choice, we adopt William Riker’s statement of its essence: 1. Actors are able to order their alternative goals, values, tastes and strategies. This means that the relation of preference and indifference among the alternatives is transitive. 2. Actors choose from available alternatives so as to maximize their satisfaction.” This whole statement helps with shedding more light on the strategic
111) states that “Attitudinalists argue that because legal rules governing decision making (e.g., precedent, plain meaning) in the cases that come to the Court do not limit discretion; because the justices need not respond to public opinion, Congress, or the President; and because the Supreme Court is the court of last resort, the justices, unlike their lower court colleagues, may freely implement their personal policy preferences as the attitudinal model specifies.” In the event of the Attitudinal model, The ideological views of the judge and his policy preferences can have a profound effect on his decision-making than the law. This helps with understanding the strength of the Attitudinal model because it’s not all about ulterior motive, other things play a huge role. With what was mentioned in lecture, it was stated that sometimes attitudinal model could be helpful when trying to achieve a favorable outcome, align with your political ideologies or get a decision overturned. This is so because a judge might use that to either show his political and policy position, get the judge or judges in line and sometimes show what way the court is leaning in terms of if the tribunal is made up of majority or minority liberal or conservative or where what judges stands in terms of landmark cases like Roe v. Wade etc. focuses on the vote of merits. Segal, Spaeth & Harold (p. 111) states that “while the attitudinal model limits the justices to policy goals, …show more content…
It’s not so much more about the outcome and the decision reached is based on morality, obligations, ideologies or the facts of the case but rather the distinctly making the decision based on strategy. How the decision is going to affect the court legitimacy wise, how the outside power is going to intervene like the president or even the Congress disagreeing with them in one way or the other and also how the case is going to bolster their popularity. All in all, strategic model is more about the politics and policies than it is so much about what’s right or wrong. The strategic theory focuses on both the vote on certiorari and the vote on the merit. Segal, Spaeth & Harold (p. 97) pointed out that the “choice paradigm represents an attempt to apply and adapt the theories and methods of economics to the entire range of human political and social interactions. Because of the scope of this paradigm, innumerable rational choice models that rest on a common set of assumptions exist. While scholars might quibble about the core of rational choice, we adopt William Riker’s statement of its essence: 1. Actors are able to order their alternative goals, values, tastes and strategies. This means that the relation of preference and indifference among the alternatives is transitive. 2. Actors choose from available alternatives so as to maximize their satisfaction.” This whole statement helps with shedding more light on the strategic