Author's Keywords: Institutional Legitimacy, Alito Confirmation, Public Opinion and the Supreme Court,Positivity Bias, Confirmation Politics	Convention Submission, Review, and Scheduling! All Academic Convention can help with all of your abstract management needs and many more. Contact us today for a quote! Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Political Science Association URL: http://www.apsanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152005_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Gibson, James. and Caldeira, Gregory. "Confirmation Politics and the Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31, 2006 <Not Available>. 2009-05-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152005_index.html>

Gibson, J. L. and Caldeira, G. A. , 2006-08-31 "Confirmation Politics and the Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA Online <APPLICATION/PDF>. 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152005_index.html

Publication Type: Proceeding Abstract: In their analysis of the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court in the aftermath of Bush v. Gore, Gibson, Caldeira, and Spence expound the theory of positivity bias. This theory asserts that pre-existing institutional loyalty shapes perceptions of and judgments about court decisions and events. In this paper, we use the theory of positivity bias to investigate the preferences of Americans regarding the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to a seat on the United States Supreme Court. More specifically, we derive from that theory the hypothesis that Alito confirmation preferences are shaped by pre-existing commitments to the Supreme Court. We demonstrate that those who have a high level of loyalty toward the Supreme Court rely much more heavily on criteria of judiciousness in forming their opinions on whether to confirm Alito. We conclude that institutional loyalty is an important frame through which Americans view the activity of their Supreme Court, and overcoming the presumptions built into that frame is essential if an opposition is to succeed in opposing a presidential nomination.

The salience of unusual issue preferences: the effect of relative policy positions on issue importance for parties in 23 countries

The New Ideology? Accessibilty, Religiosity, Issue Preferences and Political Partisanship in American Politics