Expectations and Images: A Note on Diffuse Support for Legal Institutions

Abstract

There has recently been a growing concern within political science with the public's support for governmental institutions. To date, the research in the judicial realm — focusing extensively on the United States Supreme Court — has measured support primarily in terms of the public's evaluation of court outputs and has attempted to explain support through variables believed to function as important bases or references for these evaluations, e.g., policy orientations, political party identification, and race (Murphy and Tanenhaus, 1968a and 1968b; Dolbeare and Hammond, 1968; Dolbeare, 1967; Hirsh and Donohew, 1968). Yet the public is not especially cognizant of court decisions and the low “visibility” of judicial bodies (Dolbeare, 1967; 198-201; Barth, 1968; Jacob, 1966) would suggest that the basis of support might well be more diffuse than specific. An analysis of diffuse support might be concerned primarily with the public's general willingness to comply with judicial decrees or with its willingness to maintain judicial institutions as bodies appropriate for resolving conflicts, and only secondarily with outputs.

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