Articles producció científica> Enginyeria Química

Justice Blocks and Predictability of US Supreme Court Votes

  • Dades identificatives

    Identificador: imarina:9298205
    Autors:
    Guimera, RogerSales-Pardo, Marta
    Resum:
    Successful attempts to predict judges' votes shed light into how legal decisions are made and, ultimately, into the behavior and evolution of the judiciary. Here, we investigate to what extent it is possible to make predictions of a justice's vote based on the other justices' votes in the same case. For our predictions, we use models and methods that have been developed to uncover hidden associations between actors in complex social networks. We show that these methods are more accurate at predicting justice's votes than forecasts made by legal experts and by algorithms that take into consideration the content of the cases. We argue that, within our framework, high predictability is a quantitative proxy for stable justice (and case) blocks, which probably reflect stable a priori attitudes toward the law. We find that U. S. Supreme Court justice votes are more predictable than one would expect from an ideal court composed of perfectly independent justices. Deviations from ideal behavior are most apparent in divided 5-4 decisions, where justice blocks seem to be most stable. Moreover, we find evidence that justice predictability decreased during the 50-year period spanning from the Warren Court to the Rehnquist Court, and that aggregate court predictability has been significantly lower during Democratic presidencies. More broadly, our results show that it is possible to use methods developed for the analysis of complex social networks to quantitatively investigate historical questions related to political decision-making.
  • Altres:

    Autor segons l'article: Guimera, Roger; Sales-Pardo, Marta
    Departament: Enginyeria Química
    Autor/s de la URV: Guimera Manrique, Roger / Sales Pardo, Marta
    Paraules clau: United states Supreme court decisions Social justice Network analysis Models, theoretical Ideological values Humans House-of-representatives Decision making Complex networks Community structure Blockmodels
    Resum: Successful attempts to predict judges' votes shed light into how legal decisions are made and, ultimately, into the behavior and evolution of the judiciary. Here, we investigate to what extent it is possible to make predictions of a justice's vote based on the other justices' votes in the same case. For our predictions, we use models and methods that have been developed to uncover hidden associations between actors in complex social networks. We show that these methods are more accurate at predicting justice's votes than forecasts made by legal experts and by algorithms that take into consideration the content of the cases. We argue that, within our framework, high predictability is a quantitative proxy for stable justice (and case) blocks, which probably reflect stable a priori attitudes toward the law. We find that U. S. Supreme Court justice votes are more predictable than one would expect from an ideal court composed of perfectly independent justices. Deviations from ideal behavior are most apparent in divided 5-4 decisions, where justice blocks seem to be most stable. Moreover, we find evidence that justice predictability decreased during the 50-year period spanning from the Warren Court to the Rehnquist Court, and that aggregate court predictability has been significantly lower during Democratic presidencies. More broadly, our results show that it is possible to use methods developed for the analysis of complex social networks to quantitatively investigate historical questions related to political decision-making.
    Àrees temàtiques: Zootecnia / recursos pesqueiros Sociology Sociología Serviço social Saúde coletiva Química Psychology Psicología Planejamento urbano e regional / demografia Odontología Nutrição Multidisciplinary sciences Multidisciplinary Medicine (miscellaneous) Medicina veterinaria Medicina iii Medicina ii Medicina i Materiais Matemática / probabilidade e estatística Linguística e literatura Letras / linguística Interdisciplinary research in the social sciences Interdisciplinar Human geography and urban studies History & philosophy of science Historia Geografía Geociências General medicine General biochemistry,genetics and molecular biology General agricultural and biological sciences Farmacia Environmental studies Ensino Engenharias iv Engenharias iii Engenharias ii Engenharias i Enfermagem Educação física Educação Economia Direito Demography Comunicação e informação Ciências sociais aplicadas i Ciências biológicas iii Ciências biológicas ii Ciências biológicas i Ciências ambientais Ciências agrárias i Ciência política e relações internacionais Ciência de alimentos Ciência da computação Biotecnología Biology Biodiversidade Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (miscellaneous) Astronomia / física Arquitetura, urbanismo e design Archaeology Antropologia / arqueologia Anthropology Agricultural and biological sciences (miscellaneous) Administração, ciências contábeis e turismo Administração pública e de empresas, ciências contábeis e turismo
    Accès a la llicència d'ús: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
    Adreça de correu electrònic de l'autor: roger.guimera@urv.cat marta.sales@urv.cat
    Identificador de l'autor: 0000-0002-3597-4310 0000-0002-8140-6525
    Data d'alta del registre: 2024-10-19
    Versió de l'article dipositat: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
    Enllaç font original: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0027188
    URL Document de llicència: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/
    Referència a l'article segons font original: Plos One. 6 (11): e27188-
    Referència de l'ítem segons les normes APA: Guimera, Roger; Sales-Pardo, Marta (2011). Justice Blocks and Predictability of US Supreme Court Votes. Plos One, 6(11), e27188-. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027188
    DOI de l'article: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027188
    Entitat: Universitat Rovira i Virgili
    Any de publicació de la revista: 2011
    Tipus de publicació: Journal Publications
  • Paraules clau:

    Agricultural and Biological Sciences (Miscellaneous),Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Miscellaneous),Biology,Medicine (Miscellaneous),Multidisciplinary,Multidisciplinary Sciences
    United states
    Supreme court decisions
    Social justice
    Network analysis
    Models, theoretical
    Ideological values
    Humans
    House-of-representatives
    Decision making
    Complex networks
    Community structure
    Blockmodels
    Zootecnia / recursos pesqueiros
    Sociology
    Sociología
    Serviço social
    Saúde coletiva
    Química
    Psychology
    Psicología
    Planejamento urbano e regional / demografia
    Odontología
    Nutrição
    Multidisciplinary sciences
    Multidisciplinary
    Medicine (miscellaneous)
    Medicina veterinaria
    Medicina iii
    Medicina ii
    Medicina i
    Materiais
    Matemática / probabilidade e estatística
    Linguística e literatura
    Letras / linguística
    Interdisciplinary research in the social sciences
    Interdisciplinar
    Human geography and urban studies
    History & philosophy of science
    Historia
    Geografía
    Geociências
    General medicine
    General biochemistry,genetics and molecular biology
    General agricultural and biological sciences
    Farmacia
    Environmental studies
    Ensino
    Engenharias iv
    Engenharias iii
    Engenharias ii
    Engenharias i
    Enfermagem
    Educação física
    Educação
    Economia
    Direito
    Demography
    Comunicação e informação
    Ciências sociais aplicadas i
    Ciências biológicas iii
    Ciências biológicas ii
    Ciências biológicas i
    Ciências ambientais
    Ciências agrárias i
    Ciência política e relações internacionais
    Ciência de alimentos
    Ciência da computação
    Biotecnología
    Biology
    Biodiversidade
    Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (miscellaneous)
    Astronomia / física
    Arquitetura, urbanismo e design
    Archaeology
    Antropologia / arqueologia
    Anthropology
    Agricultural and biological sciences (miscellaneous)
    Administração, ciências contábeis e turismo
    Administração
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