Assessing the Stability of the Rule of Four on the U.S. Supreme Court

33 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2008

See all articles by Brandon L. Bartels

Brandon L. Bartels

George Washington University

René Lindstädt

University of Birmingham

Date Written: April 21, 2008

Abstract

Most research on the U.S. Supreme Court treats the Rule of Four as a fixed agenda-setting norm to which justices faithfully adhere. In this paper, we investigate the stability of the Rule of Four and suggest that there are circumstances under which the Rule of Four is violated. We argue that these violations are tied to the degree of ideological heterogeneity on the Court. Applying an existing theory of institutional stability (Barbera and Jackson, 2004), we connect agenda-setting procedures directly to the ideological heterogeneity of the justices on a given Court. We investigate hypothetical ideological configurations as well as the 1937-2006 terms of the Court and find that the Rule of Four is rarely stable. Only when a majority coalition, considering an ideologically incongruent lower court decision, possesses high intra-coalition ideological homogeneity, is the Rule of Four stable.

Keywords: U.S. Supreme Court, Rule of Four, institutional stability, minority rule institutions, norms

Suggested Citation

Bartels, Brandon L. and Lindstaedt, Rene, Assessing the Stability of the Rule of Four on the U.S. Supreme Court (April 21, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1123752 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1123752

Brandon L. Bartels (Contact Author)

George Washington University ( email )

Dept. of Political Science, GWU
2115 G Street NW, Suite 440
Washington, DC 20052
United States
202-642-1459 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://home.gwu.edu/~bartels

Rene Lindstaedt

University of Birmingham ( email )

Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
United Kingdom

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