Considérée depuis plus de deux siècles comme une tradition intangible, la brièveté des décisions de justice est aujourd'hui remise en question par les juridictions suprêmes françaises. Les évolutions actuelles de la justice conduisent les juges à s'interroger sur le maintien de la concision caractéristique de leurs décisions. Ce questionnement s'inscrit dans une réflexion globale sur la fonction de juger. Le style des décisions est en effet lié à une certaine représentation de la justice. Dès lors, il convient de mettre au jour la représentation exprimée par la brièveté des décisions et celle qu'appellerait un mode de rédaction plus long. L'étude des significations prises par la brièveté des décisions montre qu'elle exprime la puissance refusée de la justice et se heurte à l'exercice du pouvoir de juger. Le caractère ambivalent de la brièveté permet de montrer le paradoxe qui traverse l'histoire de la justice française. En se taisant, le juge a entretenu jusqu'à présent la fiction du juge bouche de la loi tout en exerçant son pouvoir créateur. Son pouvoir ne faisant désormais plus de doute, le juge doit l'assumer à travers une rédaction plus développée de ses décisions. / Considered for over two centuries as an established tradition, courts' brevity decisions is now challenged by French's supreme courts. Current developments of justice lead judges to highlight the necessity or not to maintain one of their main singularity which is to writ short decisions. This question is part of an overall consideration of the judicial function. The way the decisions are written is indeed related to some representations of justice. Then, it's necessary to update the judicial function's representation which is now also expressed by decisions' brevity. The study of the brevity meanings points out that brevity expresses a denied power of justice and faces the judge's power exercise. The ambivalent nature of brevity shows an historical paradox which is present through the history of French justice. By remaining silent, the judge has so far maintained the fiction of a non creative judge while exercising his creative power. No longer in doubt, the judge's power must be assumed through a more developed writing of its decisions.

This work intends to be an application and understanding of the Christian just war tradition as it pertains to the actions of the United States government in Iraq. It includes a short history of the evolution of the tradition, the application and discussion of the three most controversial criterion, and a discussion of how the terror attacks on the World Trade Center may constitute a pre-emptive strike. Essentially, the piece endeavors to explore how untested, unseen dangers drive a government to act for the defense of its citizens and their way of life. The theory draws heavily on Michael Walzer’s invention of the concept of “supreme emergency” which allowed for exceptional actions during war if a people’s entire way of life is threatened.

This thesis examines the recently decided Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case regards campaign finance reform, and has raised significant controversy recently. This thesis will evaluate the arguments from both the dissent and the majority opinions, contextualize these arguments with respect to the history of campaign finance reform and the history of the legislation with regard to corporations, and will ultimately pass judgment on whether the Court was correct in its decision. Implications for the post-Citizens world will also be considered.

In recent months, presidential appointments to the Supreme Court have become an increasingly salient issue with both the public and the press. The relevance of the topic makes it an inviting subject for political science research. When looking at the question of judicial quality, the problem that researchers have faced in the past is one of quantifying quality. This work seeks to expand on previous survey research done on the quality of individual justices. By using quality scores (Comiskey 2004) as a dependent variable, it is possible to analyze influences on the President’s nomination choice and their relative impacts on the quality of justices. By using a more rigorous approach, this study can more confidently make assertions about the nature of the nomination and confirmation process and the quality of Supreme Court justices.

The special role courts play in a democracy requires designers of constitutions to consider the delicate trade-offs between democratic accountability and judicial independence. This dissertation analyzes the decisional consequences of state supreme court institutional structures. States utilize several types of election and elite reconfirmation, and each method carries a systematically different risk of incumbent defeat. My theory predicts that as reappointment uncertainty increases, judicial independence decreases. I define judicial independence as decisions made by judges using only considerations that are internal to the rule of law. I measure judicial independence by quantifying the external influence of partisan, elite, popular, and economic pressures applied to judges. I conclude by considering the normative implications of the empirical findings. Because judicial independence is a problem of optimization, not maximization, constitutional designers hope to strike a balance between some form of judicial accountability, popular constitutionalism, and judicial independence. / text

This project explores the role that the United States Supreme Court plays in shaping public opinion. Previous scholars have successfully demonstrated that political elites influence public opinion, but those researching the Court's influence on attitude change have reached mixed findings. I build on previous work in three important ways. First, I employ a method of attributing attitude change to the Court that is a theoretical and empirical improvement over previous ways of identifying those who should be influenced by the justices, "reception" of cases. By "reception", I mean whether an individual understands the Court's decisions. Second, I place Court decisions within the broader information environment that includes the cues sent to the public by other political elites. These cues may reinforce or undermine the justices' decision, which could amplify or undercut the effect of receiving cases on attitude change. Third, I take advantage of recent work on the dynamics of attitude change by interacting reception with one's relevant pre-existing beliefs and personal characteristics. To test these assertions, I use a mixed method, multi-case design that combines existing survey research with original data collected from a quasi-experiment conducted in summer 2005. The results indicate that under certain conditions, receiving Court decisions is associated with attitude change on the issues involved in the cases. This project closes with several suggestions for future research including how to refine reception as a method of attributing attitude change to the Court. / text

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<p>In this project, I examine why the judicial authority of the United States Supreme Court has increased. I propose a theoretical explanation of endogenous institutional change at the Court whereby the actions of the Court---specifically its decisions and the opinions in which it announces those decisions---have, over the long-run, altered the structures of the American separation-of-powers system. The Court has built up public support for the institution of judicial review to such a degree that its rulings are respected even when opposed by strong political actors---including the public. I evaluate this theory by analyzing three important transitional periods of Supreme Court history. The first case study explores the Court under Chief Justice John Marshall, and examines how the Court established judicial review as the most important means of constitutional interpretation. The second case study explores the Court's first cases interpreting the three Reconstruction Amendments, and shows that through these decisions the Court established itself as the arbiter of the meaning of these new amendments. The third case study looks at the Court's decision to hear reapportionment cases and its articulation of the political question doctrine that provided a legalistic method of expanding the political power of the Court. I conclude from these case studies that my theory provides a useful explanation for the expansion of judicial authority.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis looks at the state of marriage equality activism in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 26, 2013 decisions in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry. Some scholars, such as Gerald Rosenberg, argue that Supreme Court decisions can never affect “significant social change,” either directly or indirectly, while others argue that such decisions can be hugely important in directly affecting policy. My focus is on how activist organizations, which have a substantial track record of directly affecting policy, are influenced by changes to the political environment stemming from major Court decisions regarding social issues. After examining how past litigative efforts such as Baehr v. Lewin and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health have affected the LGBT rights movement, and marriage equality activism specifically, I discuss how organizational strategies have changed minimally, but the political environment in which marriage equality activism is operating has shifted quite a bit, especially in terms of framing and legal precedent. I conclude that Court decisions can indeed have a significant impact on social change by affecting the way in which it is possible for activists on both sides of the issue to shape and deliver their message to the general public, legislators, and courts in future litigative efforts.

The "law versus politics" debate is central in the study of the Supreme Court's institutional role in US democracy and law making. Research has sought to determine if the Supreme Court is an unconstrained political actor or if it is constrained by precedent. This dissertation contributes to this debate by theorizing that there is not a direct tradeoff; instead, even a politically motivated Court can be constrained by precedent. Given precedent is an internally imposed norm, what incentive does a politically motivated Supreme Court have to adhere to precedent when it results in outcomes that deviate from the Court's most preferred ideological outcome? There has been a lack of theoretical development and empirical testing that would explain the Court's incentive to adhere to precedent. I argue that even a politically motivated Supreme Court has an interest in adhering to precedent as a means of control over the lower courts. The Court has a role as a principal with the Courts of Appeals acting as an agent. The Supreme Court uses precedent as a standard that guides lower court decision-making in thousands of cases that the Court will never hear. The Supreme Court is willing to sacrifice the dispositional outcome (who wins and who loses) in a given case to issue or adhere to a precedent that will better guide lower court decision-making in a given area. To test this theory, this project will construct an original data set using a new measure of precedent. Specifically, "the law" and "precedent" for a case will be coded in terms of the standard of review. The standard of review can be understood as a precise legal statement of which party has the burden of proof or justification in a given case and the nature of that burden. This is an ordinal measure (coded 0-4) based on the Court's finite legal rules in a given area of law (rational basis, heightened rational basis, intermediate, heightened intermediate and strict). This novel understanding better captures the legal content of court opinions.