The Supreme Court and policy legitimation: Experimental tests

This article examines the legitimacy-conferring potential of the U.S. Supreme Court. Legitimacy-conferring potential is conceptualized as the Court’s ability, through mere endorsement of a particular policy, to elevate mass acceptance of that policy. The study reports the results of three experiments utilizing a split-ballot design where, in general, one group is given a version of an issue endorsed by the Supreme Court and a second group is given the same issue not endorsed by the Court. In two of the experiments a third attribution condition is used where an issue is endorsed by the Supreme Court as interpreter of the Constitution. Based on the analysis of 16 policy issues across three experiments, the Court does not appear to have the power to legitimate specific policies bearing its stamp of approval. Americans are a nation of Constitution worshippers, with the Supreme Court acting as a high priest administering to the faithful.... The Constitution seems to be or is considered the rock upon which the nation was built... The Justices have the task of exegesis of the Sacred text [Arthur Miller, 1965: 154]. The main task of the Court is to confer legitimacy on the fundamental policies of the successful coalition [Robert Dahl, 1957: 294]. The Court’s most striking power, judicial review, is largely, if not solely, symbolic and is merely the logical corrolary of the power to legitimate [Richard Funston, 1975: 811]. The Court may not, in fact, have a legitimacy-conferring capacit