Measuring Political Preferences

Abstract

Abstract Almost all theories of judicial behaviour ascribe a key role to political preferences. The idea is that the judges want to align the law with their political commitments—whether ideological or partisan. This chapter explores strategies for measuring and estimating the judges’ political preferences. It consists of two major parts: exogenous measures of political preferences (those that are based on information causally prior to any votes cast or other choices the judges make) and endogenous measures (those that depend on revealed behaviour). The authors detail the strengths and weaknesses of the various measures, and offer suggestions for forward movement. Mostly, though, they encourage readers to keep an open mind as to the best ways to measure political preferences in their own applications.