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Diffuse Support, Specific Support and Attentiveness: Components of the Public's Assessment of the Supreme Court
Author(s) -
Scheb John M.,
Lyons William
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
southeastern political review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 0730-2177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.1999.tb00560.x
Subject(s) - normative , supreme court , population , political science , government (linguistics) , public support , context (archaeology) , principal (computer security) , politics , law , public administration , sociology , computer science , computer security , geography , linguistics , philosophy , demography , archaeology
Political scientists have identified two principal dimensions of support for the Supreme Court, namely, “diffuse” and “specific” support. This paper examines the relationship between diffuse and specific in the context of a model of overall evaluation of the Court. Using data from a national survey, the paper demonstrates that specific support, which is in effect a policy‐based evaluation, and diffuse support, which is more of a normative evaluation, are both important components of the public's assessment of the Court's overall performance. However, the paper shows that the impact of diffuse and specific support on overall evaluation of the Court varies according to levels of attentiveness to the Court. Specifically, the more attentive segment of the population relies heavily on the normative criteria that underlie diffuse support and to a lesser extent on the policy‐based criteria that underlie specific support. The least attentive segment of the population is less able to utilize both normative and policy‐based criteria and consequently relies mainly on its general attitudes about government.