Whether courts set the agenda or simply react to policy attention in other institutions is a question unresolved by social scientists and legal scholars, and one with important implications for policymakers. For example, by using the courts, do interest groups encourage attention for their preferred policies? Through litigation, do citizens gain the attention of government? These and other questions are part of a larger puzzle: what part do federal courts play in the policy process? On this, two separate perspectives have emerged. In the first view, the courts are passive implementers of policy, with attention in the courts following attention in other institutions. Contrary to this perspective, an emerging literature suggests the courts can be used by litigants and interest groups to proactively shift issue attention across multiple policymaking institutions. To address these questions, this research offers the first comprehensive, long-term study of issue attention across the federal judiciary. The investigator examines change in the issue attention of litigants, judges and interest groups within the federal courts and documents their relationships within and across courts. Beyond the judiciary, the author tests competing theories of how Congress and the executive branch impact, or are impacted by, the issue attention of actors within the legal system. In doing so, this project offers a unique contribution to studies of the hierarchical relationships of federal courts as well as the role of courts in the policy process.
Moreover, the data provided by the study offer a substantial resource for scholars of judicial politics, interest groups, agenda-setting, and the policy process. More broadly, for litigants and groups designing broad strategies to influence public policy, whether or not the courts are influential in determining issue attention has dire implications. For judges and court administrators who are responsible for oversight of the judicial process, the proposed research and resultant data will also be of potential interest.
The American policy making process is marked by the interdependent decisions of numerous national political institutions, with the issue attention of any one institution linked to the issue attention of other institutions. On the question of how the federal courts fit into this process, two separate and contrary perspectives have emerged. From one perspective, the federal courts are primarily involved in the implementation of public policy, with their attention to political issues unrelated or subsequent to the attention of Congress and the president. Yet a contrary perspective suggests instead that the federal courts, by virtue of their unique institutional characteristics, serve as an important venue for those out of power to pique the interest of national political institutions to issues which they are reluctant to address. The research supported by this award sought to understand and empirically assess these dynamics by constructing a comprehensive dataset on issue attention in the federal courts, and examining the movement of policy attention both throughout the federal courts and between the federal courts and other national political institutions. The results suggest important variation in issue attention dynamics both by the actors involved -- litigants, judges, or interest groups -- and by the policy area under consideration. For some issue areas -- such as civil rights and liberties -- the attention of actors in the federal courts generally precedes the attention of Congress and the president, indicating the courts occasionally play the crucial role of agenda-setter in the policymaking process in the period under study. Yet for other issue areas -- such as education -- the attention of actors in the federal courts lags behind the attention of national political institutions, suggesting that on these issues the courts primarily play the role of policy implementer. These dynamics have important implications for the representativeness of the American policy process, as the courts serve as a venue in which out-of-power groups may seek policy change for only a subset of political issues. The results are also consequential for the strategies of litigants and interest groups seeking to use the courts as part of a broad strategy to influence public policy, with the results suggesting these strategies are unlikely to achieve success for many political issues.
