Showing papers by "Donald R. Songer published in 2011"

Explaining Changes to Rights Litigation: Testing a Multivariate Model in a Comparative Framework

Abstract: Why do we witness variation in the level of judicial attention to rights litigation across countries and over time? Traditional explanations emphasize the constitutional recognition of rights, judicial leadership, and the development in society of a sophisticated “support structure for legal mobilization,” as key covariates of these phenomena. Yet, there is a dearth of quantitative empirical analyses that evaluate these explanations comparatively and actually test their relative influence on trends of rights litigation and protection. Perhaps the most important lacuna in this regard is an assessment of the influence of institutional conditions and modifications in bringing about or facilitating the transformation of the rights scene. To contribute to closing this gap, this article empirically assesses the short and long term impacts of ideology, support structure, and institutional protection on changes in the presence of rights litigation in the dockets of the High Courts of several democracies with Comm...

Judge Gender, Critical Mass, and Decision Making in the Appellate Courts of Canada

Abstract: In this study, we explore gendered patterns of voting, and whether such patterns appear only after a critical mass of female justices is reached by analyzing the votes of justices in the Supreme Court of Canada. We employ a logistic regression model of the differences in the voting behavior of male versus female justices, using the universe of Supreme Court votes from 1982 through 2007. Our analysis supports the conclusion that women vote more liberally on civil rights, equality, and private economic cases, and more conservatively on criminal cases. However, we find no evidence that indicates a need for a critical mass of women justices for them to vote their sincere preferences.

Explaining Dissent on the Supreme Court of Canada

Abstract: . While there is an extensive literature on the causes of dissensus on appellate courts in the US, few empirical studies exist of the causes of dissent in Canadian Supreme Court. The current study seeks to close that gap in the literature, proposing and then testing what we call a Canadian model of dissent. We find that the likelihood of dissent is strongly related to four broad factors that appear to exert independent influence on whether the Court is consensual or divided: political conflict, institutional structure, legal ambiguity in the law and variations in the leadership style of the chief justice.Resume. Les causes de dissension dans les cours d'appel aux Etats-Unis font l'objet de nombreux articles et publications, mais il existe tres peu d'etudes empiriques sur les causes de dissidence a la Cour supreme du Canada. La presente etude vise a combler cette lacune en proposant, un modele canadien de dissension, puis en le mettant a l'epreuve. Nous avons constate que le risque de dissension est fortement lie a quatre facteurs generaux qui semblent exercer une influence independante, que la Cour soit en accord ou divisee. Ces facteurs sont le conflit politique, la structure institutionnelle, la presence d'une ambiguite juridique dans la loi et le style de direction du juge en chef.

The Support Structure and Sustained Attention to Rights: A Rejoinder

Abstract: I n his response, Professor Epp defends his support structure thesis claiming that it is a ‘‘necessary condition for sustained judicial attention to civil rights and liberties.’’ He criticizes us for devoting ‘‘most of [our] paper to refuting a thesis that is not mine’’ and for failing to ‘‘take into account the findings of research on the support structure in these countries.’’ Unfortunately, Professor Epp avoids offering a better explanation (or definition) of the support structure mechanism and how one would observe its effects on rights litigation. With this in mind, our rejoinder focuses on two issues: the appropriateness of our time-series analyses and the adequacy of our tests of the necessary but not sufficient condition.