If Supreme Court behavior is structured largely by the policy preferences of the
justices, political scientists ought to consider the source of those preferences. Religion is
one force that can strongly shape a judge’s worldview and therefore her votes. In this paper,
I examine the effect of religion on U.S. Supreme Court votes in 11 issue areas plausibly
connected to religious values. Catholic justices vote in ways that more closely adhere to the
teachings of the Catholic Church than non-Catholic justices even after controlling for
ideology. These results may indicate that Catholic theology is different from Protestant or
Jewish theology. It is also possible that on some issues there is not much of a theological
difference, but religious values play a more prominent role in public life for Catholic
justices. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2012-05-5122 |
| Date | 14 August 2012 |
| Creators | Blake, William Dawes |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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