Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In Israel, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) is second in power only to the government. I argue that by strategically deciding a small number of landmark national security cases against the government, the HCJ appears an impartial reviewer, but still supports most other governmental policies. This way the court increases its sphere of political influence. A Logistic Model is used to analyse 318 security cases from the Barak Court (1997-2004). The government’s ideology, having civil rights’ organized interests as party to the case and terror attacks plus other variables known prior to the decision stage predict the final holdings. Thus, the court is a strategist – Landmark Decisions Strategy is valuable in explaining its decisions. Although traditionally the weakest of the three branches, the judiciary’s toolkit has unique virtues such as well-developed decision-making mechanisms. The HCJ struggles successfully for greater political influence using the unique tools at its disposal.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Schuetz’s presentation is based on her new textbook in which landmark cases are the basis for teaching legal communication. She will share sample assignments and ideas for how to teach legal communication that she has used both with undergraduates and law school students

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Supreme Court decisions have far-reaching effects. While the Court’s opinions are read and interpreted with an extreme amount of scrutiny, it is, however, the Court’s vote in any particular case that becomes the focal point when the decision is announced. Yet, naturally, not every case has the same salience. Certain cases, landmark cases, necessarily have a greater impact than “regular” cases. And in these landmark cases, it has been suggested that unanimity of the Court is the preferred position among the justices. That is to say, it is suggested that the justices will work for a unanimous decision in cases that will be considered to be landmark cases since unanimity enhances the Court’s decision in the particular case at hand as well as preserving if not enhancing the Supreme Court’s prestige. Yet, a closer examination of the Court’s cases seems to demonstrate that this particular piece of conventional wisdom (viz. that the Court will work for a unanimous decision in landmark cases) may not be true. After examining the mean vote in 61 landmark cases and comparing that to the mean votes in 61 regular cases there appears to exist no difference in the Court’s vote. This suggests that the Supreme Court is no more likely to arrive at a greater consensus in landmark decisions as it is in regular cases.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Congress by its very nature is a deliberative institution created to mediate societal conflicts and address the policy concerns posed by such conflicts (Madison, Federalist # 10; Dahl, 1967; Cooper, 1970). The challenge for Congress is to embrace these responsibilities without becoming so overwhelmed with internal institutional conflict that its policy processes break down or so regularized and insulated in its policy processes that it fails to see and confront pressing social concerns. Thus a central congressional dilemma: Because conflict is inherent to Congress and threatening to its operation, it is tempted to avoid institutional meltdown by embracing highly constrained and regularized policy procedures. Yet an embrace of excessive constraints can isolate the Congress, inhibit conflict mediation, and allow policy problems to fester. How then does Congress generate the landmark laws that address its central mediational and policy-making tasks (Mayhew, 1991; Binder 2003)?

The thesis of this paper is that the capacity of Congress to enact landmark legislation depends significantly on the character and regulation of conflict within the institution. Substantial and sustained landmark productivity requires a Congress that fosters real policy contestation (Dahl, 1967, 1971) characterized by serious conflict and even occasional incivilities, so that difficult policy problems can be brought to its attention (Jones and Baugartner, 2005; Schattsneider, 1960). Such contestation limits the isolation of Congress and connects it with social reality. But Congress then must maintain internal conflict within moderated parameters that avoid institutional meltdown and enable deliberative policy-making to proceed (Cooper, 1970, Part IV; Maass, 1983; Bessette, 1994).

In this formulation, too much institutional conflict can inhibit landmark productivity -- but so can too little conflict (Simmel, 1955/1908). Too much conflict, we argue, will occur in polarized Congresses when high party polarization interacts with high inter-party incivility. Too little conflict is witnessed in depolarized Congresses (those below the historic mean level of party polarization) when low party polarization interacts with excessive intra-party civility. Both settings inhibit landmark productivity. In contrast, moderate levels of interactive conflict between party polarization and member incivility foster landmark productivity in both depolarized and polarized Congresses. Institutional conflict thus has countervailing effects, increasing gridlock in polarized Congresses and decreasing it in depolarized ones.

To explore the explanatory value of our ‘conflict theory’ of landmark productivity we examine the statistical relationship between institutional conflict and landmark legislation by Congress from 1891 to 1994. This period begins with the first Congress to occur after the initial passage of the Reed Rules in the House of Representatives and ends with the 103rd Congress, which is the last Congress for which we have complete data. In our analysis:



a. We use DW-Nominate scores developed by Poole and Rosenthal (1997) to
measure party polarization.
b. We determine the rise and fall of incivility within Congress according to the
percentage of articles published by the New Your Times and the Washington
Post on the Congress between 1891 and 1994 that discuss incidents of
congressional incivility.
c. For our indicators of landmark productivity we have gathered an original
compilation of landmark acts by surveying the coverage of all congressional acts in fifteen major publications
d. We gauge the countervailing effect of legislative conflict on landmark
legislation by examining the interaction of polarization and inter-party
incivility in polarized settings and the interaction of polarization and intra-
party incivility in depolarized contexts. This data also generates a measure of
moderate legislative conflict which we use to test the relationship between
conflict and policy productivity across all Congresses.
e. Our statistical analysis also looks at divided government, electoral mandates of presidents, divided chamber, Senate partisan capacity, New Deal era effects, and a dummy variable for depolarized Congresses.


We first test our thesis by looking at the effects of level of legislative conflict within polarized settings. This analysis indicates that increased legislative conflict aids landmark productivity in depolarized Congresses and hinders it in polarized ones. Additionally, it suggests that moderate conflict fosters policy productivity across all Congresses. We test the power of this finding by developing a measure of moderate conflict (as opposed to extreme low or high polar conflict) and utilizing it in the analysis of landmark productivity across all Congresses. This analysis demonstrates that that moderate levels of interactive conflict appear to foster landmark legislation while the contrasting extremes of conflict – high in polarized settings and low in depolarized setting – hinder landmark legislation.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: This paper will provide a historical context for the Farish Street Historic Distirct as a community created, like many southern African American communities, by segregation. Its demise began with intergration. It will explore the meaning of that district as landmark, as the term is used by the National Park Service's Land Mark committee. Further, it will explain how and why the term is applied to the Farish Historic Neighborhood.