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Losing, but Accepting: Legitimacy, Positivity Theory, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

James L. Gibson ,
Milton Lodge  and
Benjamin Woodson
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Abstract

How is it that the U.S. Supreme Court is capable of getting most citizens to accept rulings with which they disagree? This analysis addresses the role of the symbols of judicial authority and legitimacy—the robe, the gavel, the cathedral-like court building—in contributing to this willingness of ordinary people to acquiesce to disagreeable court decisions. Using an experimental design and a nationally representative sample, we show that exposure to judicial symbols (1) strengthens the link between institutional support and acquiescence among those with relatively low prior awareness of the Supreme Court, (2) has differing effects depending upon levels of preexisting institutional support, and (3) severs the link between disappointment with a disagreeable Court decision and willingness to challenge the ruling. Since symbols influence citizens in ways that reinforce the legitimacy of courts, the connection between institutional attitudes and acquiescence posited by Legitimacy Theory is both supported and explained.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 837 - 866
Copyright
© 2014 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

This is a much revised version of an article delivered at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, August 28–September 1, 2012. The survey on which this article is based was made possible by a grant from TESS: Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS-230, 2011, “The Legitimacy Conferring Capacity of the U.S. Supreme Court: The Influence of Institutional Symbols”), to whom we are much indebted. Gibson and Lodge also acknowledge the support for this research of the Russell Sage Foundation's Visiting Scholar program. We appreciate the comments of Alicia Salvino on an earlier version of this article. Members of the American Politics Workshop at Columbia University—and especially Don Green—made many useful suggestions about revisions to an earlier version of this article. We also appreciate very much the comments of Dino P. Christenson, David Glick, George E. Marcus, Christopher Claassen, Jenny Mansbridge, Jeffrey Yates, Sidney G. Tarrow, Michael Olivas, Neil Malhotra, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Lawrence Friedman, Matthew Hall, Stephen Jesse, Christopher Johnston, Charlie Geyh, Tom Clark, Peter Enns, Bernadette Atuahene, Brandon Bartels, Vincent Hutchins, Marc Hetherington, Jeffrey Staton, Marcus Prior, Jane June, and Jesse Atencio.

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