While research on social movement outcomes has increased significantly, less is known about how the causal determinants of movement success might vary over time. Quantitative historical methods, such as time series and event history analysis, take time-varying factors into account, but these methods also assume that the statistical relationships found are stable over time. This may not always be true. Instead, changing historical contexts may lead to changes in the causal determinants of movement outcomes, so a movement tactic such as legal mobilization is important in some years, but not in others. Using a series of “moving” event histories, this article investigates whether there have been variations over time in the causal determinants of sodomy law decriminalization, a long-term goal of the gay and lesbian movement, between 1961 and 1998. Results indicate that that the causes of decriminalization do vary across time. More specifically, the shift from legislative repeal to judicial invalidation as the primary mechanism of decriminalization, and changes in the primary advocates of reform from legal experts to movement activists significantly changed the factors contributing to sodomy law decriminalization over time.

Timing Matters: Shifts in the Causal Determinants of Sodomy Law Decriminalization, 1961–1998

Law professors and political scientists generally subscribe to opposed theories of Supreme Court decision making. Law professors, to a great degree, adhere to an internal view: Supreme Court justices decide cases according to legal rules, principles, and precedents. Political scientists follow an external view: justices decide cases according to their political ideologies or preferences. This Article develops an interpretive-structural theory that harmonizes these seemingly opposed views. This interpretive-structural theory not only explains why the internal and external views often are both effective but also why, sometimes, one approach might be more effective than the other. The Article concludes by comparing the interpretive-structural theory with the “new institutionalism” that is emerging in political science.

Rule of Law or the Rule of Politics? Harmonizing the Internal and External Views of Supreme Court Decision Making

Over the past decade, social science researchers in the area of feminism, labor, immigration, and family have written extensively on the care work crisis and globalized care work. Depending on how ...

Conceptualizing the Foundation of Inequalities in Care Work

Without the explanatory power of general theoretical principles, criminal justice educators are limited to subjectively describing the structure and function of our systems of criminal justice rather than explaining why these systems behave the way they do. Because of this, criminal justice lacks integrity as a legitimate academic discipline that seeks to meet the objectives of a liberal arts education. This paper explores the establishment of ideology as a first principle of criminal justice, derived from political philosophy and sociological theory. We examine ways to build upon this principle as a means of teaching criminal justice within the guise of the liberal arts tradition by guiding students toward a deeper understanding of the nature of our criminal justice systems and their place in larger society.

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Ideology and criminal justice: Suggestions for a pedagogical model

Law professors and political scientists generally subscribe to opposed theories of Supreme Court decision making. Law professors, to a great degree, adhere to an internal view: Supreme Court justices decide cases according to legal rules, principles, and precedents. Political scientists follow an external view: justices decide cases according to their political ideologies or preferences. This article develops an interpretive-structural theory that harmonizes these seemingly opposed views. This interpretive-structural theory not only explains why the internal and external views often are both effective but also why, sometimes, one approach might be more effective than the other. The article concludes by comparing the interpretive-structural theory with the “new institutionalism” that is emerging in political science.

The Rule of Law or the Rule of Politics? Harmonizing the Internal and External Views of Supreme Court Decision Making

This inquiry provides a basic assessment of the impact of three potential determinants of racial discrimination cases in the U.S. Supreme Court since 1954. The research design provides two improved methods of explicating this issue. First, the model allows for a comparison of basic Hamiltonian institutionalism (i.e., the bulwark thesis), majoritarianism, and attitudinalism in a single test, as opposed to previous studies that tended to examine only two theoretical approaches at a time. Second, the majoritarian approach is given more careful consideration through the use of theoretical and empirical evidence, which allows the subtleties of public opinion in this area to be assessed. The findings show some support for the basic bulwark prediction over majoritarianismdecisions fail to reflect majority opinion trends. The bulwark thesis fails to receive full support, however, since the ideologies of the Justices also display a significant influence on outcomes. Introduction The assessment of the determinants of U.S. Supreme Court decisionmaking remains an intensely controversial aspect of judicial studies. Advocates of several broad approaches continue to debate which is the principal impetus of outcomes both in general and in specific legal fields.1 My inquiry offers one perspective to help untangle this controversy in the domain of racial discrimination cases in the post-Brown v. Board of Education (1954) period. Although the findings will not end the long-standing debate over what determines decisional outcomes, they do provide a clarified picture of the racial discrimination subfield and a suggestion for studying other specialized areas. My basic approach and specific research design are premised on the assertion that a clear understanding of decisionmaking is obscured by previous studies (both general and particularized) that tend to inflate the influence of majority preferences (thus discrediting institutionalism to an unwarranted extent) and also fail to provide a full account by focusing only on two competing explanations at a time. The strategy for systematically interpreting outcomes in this area rests on two novel tactics. The first tactic is to expand consideration of the potential role played by majority opinion. (I furnish a complete description and justification of this approach later.) This tactic offers an improved test of the majoritarian thesis. The second approach of this inquiry allows for the explication of three potential determinants of decisionsthe rules and structure of the institution itself, majority public preference, and the ideological predilections of the Justices. It thus provides a core comparison of these broad categories rather bluntly defined, as opposed to an exhaustive assessment of all potentially meaningful determinants. Since such a basic measure of outcomes in this field has yet to be undertaken, however, this is a necessary first step. The results of this investigation of constitutional challenges to racial discrimination suggest that even though the Supreme Court is insulated from majority preferences, its decisions are influenced by Justices' ideological leanings. More specifically, although white Americans (who in this area represent the majority, as opposed to the African American minority) are much more amenable to government action designed to end blatantly discriminatory laws and practices (de jure discrimination) than to the eradication of entrenched patterns of inequity (de facto discrimination), this distinction is not reflected in the decision record. Whether a case represents a challenge to de jure or de facto discrimination does not significantly influence its outcome. Furthermore, fluctuations in the general ideological temper of the nation also fail to affect rulings. However, although distancing itself from majority influences, the Court is not consistently protective of minority rights. The ideological composition of the Court displays a significant influence on verdicts; thus, when the Court is relatively more conservative, cases are less likely to be decided in the minority interest. …

The supreme court and the protection of minority rights: An empirical examination of racial discrimination cases

Questions regarding Brown v. Board of Education's short-term effect remain unanswered, particularly its comparative impact on federal district courts and state supreme courts. We test this through an analysis of racial discrimination cases in those venues in the twenty-year period bifurcated by the decision in May 1954. Our findings suggest that while federal district courts and state courts were similarly unresponsive to discrimination claims before that date, Brown exerted a significant impact on district court decisions but had little influence at the state level. Furthermore, a third pattern was found in federal appellate courts, where discrimination claims had a high likelihood of pro-minority decisions even before the Supreme Court directive.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1555153.pdf

Francine Sanders Romero

Papers

The supreme court and the protection of minority rights: An empirical examination of racial discrimination cases

Precedent, Parity, and Racial Discrimination: A Federal/State Comparison of the Impact of Brown v. Board of Education