The importance of the Supreme Court in shaping public policy has long been recognized by scholars and public officials alike. Much of the scientific literature on the Court has focused on voting behavior or on the cases, disputes, or parties that come before the Court. In contrast, there has been little emphasis on the way the court actually interacts with other institutions of the political system. Analyses of the Court have usually examined the Court decisionmaking process in isolation or in the context of broader social or economic conditions without embedding it in a more general framework of political and regulatory institutions. The purpose of this research is to develop empirical tests of rational choice models of the Supreme Court. The main thrust of the project is that to understand the movements over time in judicial statutory interpretation, it is useful to model the Court as an institution constrained not by traditional legal rules of precedent but rather by the nature and composition of other political institutions. This rational choice model posits that the Court interacts strategically with Congress, attempting to implement its policy preferences without generating any repercussions from the House or the Senate. The model will be tested in the framework of analyzing the Court's industrial labor relations decisions. The data will consist of 171 labor cases decided between 1949 and 1987. This research will advance understanding of how judges implement their policy preferences within the context of institutional bargaining and constraints. It will also show the linkages between Supreme Court decisions and political sentiments in the Congressional and executive branches. Finally, the results will lead to the further development of empirically-estimable rational choice models that may have considerable significance in certain areas of regulation policy.
