Premium
Chief Justice Roberts's Health Care Decision Disrobed: The Microfoundations of the Supreme Court's Legitimacy
Author(s) -
Christenson Dino P.,
Glick David M.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12150
Subject(s) - supreme court , legitimacy , microfoundations , ideology , economic justice , political science , majority opinion , perception , law , institution , concurring opinion , law and economics , sociology , court of record , psychology , economics , politics , original jurisdiction , neuroscience , macroeconomics
The 2012 challenge to the Affordable Care Act was an unusual opportunity for people to form or reassess opinions about the Supreme Court. We utilize panel data coupled with as‐if random assignment to reports that Chief Justice Roberts's decision was politically motivated to investigate the microfoundations of the Court's legitimacy. Specifically, we test the effects of changes in individuals' ideological congruence with the Court and exposure to the nonlegalistic account of the decision. We find that both affect perceptions of the Court's legitimacy. Moreover, we show that these mechanisms interact in important ways and that prior beliefs that the Court is a legalistic institution magnify the effect of updating one's ideological proximity to the Court. While we demonstrate that individuals can and did update their views for multiple reasons, we also highlight constraints that allow for aggregate stability in spite of individual‐level change.