Jeff Yates

Binghamton University | SUNY Binghamton · Department of Political Science

In the current media environment, Americans increasingly tune into cable news programs with distinct ideological brands. This paper extends existing work on media source cues to coverage of the US Supreme Court, an institution which depends entirely on media outlets to communicate its rulings to the American public. We argue that the source cues as...

The last two decades have seen a dramatic rise in the ways governments, private industry, and other interests can access, gather, analyze, and employ information about citizens. Given the unique roles of practitioners from both the public and private sectors in this policy ecosystem, we lay conceptual groundwork for coevolving technological, busine...

In the current media environment, Americans increasingly tune into cable news programs with distinct ideological brands. This paper extends existing work on media source cues to coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court, an institution which depends entirely on media outlets to communicate its rulings to the American public. We argue that the source cues...

Background Courts are unusually vulnerable governing institutions that rely upon deeply seated public support and notions of institutional legitimacy to flourish and remain policy-relevant. This diffuse support allows courts to be viable policy entities while simultaneously issuing edicts that are counter-majoritarian. A recent debate centers on wh...

Two decades of research have helped show that government agencies can be innovative under certain conditions. We test hypotheses about the adoption and use of robotics as a key emerging advanced technology as advanced economies undergo the latest technological revolution. We focus on the case of American crime laboratories as a core component of th...

A fundamental concern of government is getting citizens to comply with its laws and regulations. Yet, this topic has received relatively little attention in legal or social science scholarship. We explore the degree to which people are committed to the rule of law and legal obedience. We employ a structural equation model approach to assaying the f...

The adoption and use of emerging and smart technologies like robotics is a key concern as the advanced economies undergo the latest technological revolution. While firms and factories often adopt technologies like robotics and advanced manufacturing techniques at a fast rate, government agencies are often seen as lagging in their adoption of such t...

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions' policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we invest...

Objectives The purpose of this article is to determine whether judicial insulation influences how individuals assess the rule of law. Methods We employ panel data models using data collected by the World Bank and other sources to differentiate the influence of two kinds of judicial insulation—designed (de jure) and implemented (de facto)—on indivi...

A summary and analysis of the empirical literature on courts and executives in the United States.

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions' policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we invest...

In These Estimable Courts, Damon M. Cann and Jeff Yates explore how citizens feel about the government institutions at the front lines of jurisprudential policy-making in America - our nation's state and local courts. The book's central focus concerns a primary question of governance: why do people support and find legitimate the institutions that...

Does the identity of a majority opinion writer affect the level of agreement a Supreme Court decision receives from the public? Using a survey experiment, we manipulate majority opinion authors to investigate whether individuals are willing to agree with Supreme Court opinions authored by ideologically similar justices even though the decisions cut...

In political science, the well-known “attitudinal model” of legal decision making dictates that judges' sincere policy preferences drive legal outcomes. In contrast, the celebrated “selection hypothesis” from the law and economics literature suggests that litigants carefully consider factors affecting potential case success (including judicial ideo...

In political science the well-known “Attitudinal Model” of legal decision making dictates that judges’ sincere policy preferences drive legal outcomes. In contrast, the celebrated “Selection Hypothesis” from the law and economics literature suggests that litigants carefully consider factors affecting potential case success (including judicial ideol...

In political science the well-known “Attitudinal Model” of legal decision making dictates that judges’ sincere policy preferences drive legal outcomes. In contrast, the celebrated “Selection Hypothesis” from the law and economics literature suggests that litigants carefully consider factors affecting potential case success (including judicial ideol...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of judicial insulation on perceptions of the rule of law. We offer panel data models using data collected by the World Bank on such perceptions. We estimate the impact of judicial insulation (as designed), insulation (as implemented), and the relative level of insulation given design aspects. We fi...

Some researchers argue over the existence of a “litigation explosion,” while others seek to understand the causes of variation in citizen legal mobilization and rates of litigation among states. Existing studies have provided important insight into citizens’ propensity to invoke the state courts to settle disputes; however, there remain unresolved...

In assessing how the social forces of public opinion shape U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decision making, scholars have traditionally considered public opinion as somewhat of a monolith. In other words, it has been presumed that there is one, singular public opinion and that it affects the individual justices in largely the same fashion. We suggest...

This short essay discusses trends and challenges in the study of state courts. It was part of a symposium on this topic at the annual American Political Science Association conference in Boston, MA in September 2008.

The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools-and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States. When in June 1971 President R...

Two prominent theories of legal decision making provide seemingly contradictory explanations for judicial outcomes. In political science, the Attitudinal Model suggests that judicial outcomes are driven by judges' sincere policy preferences - judges bring their ideological inclinations to the decision making process and their case outcome choices l...

One of the president’s main leadership tools for influencing the direction of American legal policy is public rhetoric. Numerous studies have examined the president’s use of the “bully pulpit” to lead policy by influencing Congress or public opinion, or by changing the behavior of public agencies. We argue that the president can use rhetoric to cha...

Since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the public's support for the judicial system looms as an especially important concern. Although studies have confirmed that the Supreme Court's reservoir of public goodwill has remained largely intact following the politically divisive decision, the status of public support for other...

Two enormously influential perspectives on courts offer fundamentally different predictions about court outcomes and the effects of judge ideology on those outcomes. Well-known to political scientists studying courts, the ideological voting (IV) literature argues that judge ideology is a strong predictor of court outcomes and that those outcomes sh...

The president has a number of leadership tools at his disposal to influence the direction of American legal policy. One such tool is public rhetoric. A host of existing scholarship has examined presidents' use of the 'bully pulpit' to lead national policy making by influencing Congress or public opinion. However, the president's use of rhetorical s...

Two important perspectives on courts highlight fundamentally different elements of the process of adjudication and yield distinct predictions about judicial outcomes. The Attitudinal Model of judicial voting (AM) posits judge ideology as a strong predictor of court outcomes. Alternatively, the Law and Economics perspective (LE) focuses on the settl...

The issue of American litigiousness, especially in the area of tort litigation, has long been a topic of academic debate and political consternation. While some researchers argue over the existence of a 'litigation explosion' or its extent, others seek to understand the root causes of citizen legal mobilization and why governmental entities (states...

In the years following the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the public's support for the judicial system looms as an especially important concern. While studies have confirmed that the Supreme Court's reservoir of public good will has remained largely intact following the politically divisive decision, the status of public su...

Objectives. Does aggregate ideological extremism reduce public participation? Does participation in governance processes fall when the social environment shifts to the extreme left or the extreme right of the political spectrum? Our main hypothesis is that the aggregate ideological orientation of the social environment constrains volunteerism in so...

In this study, we focus on an unresolved problem in our understanding of the construction of the presidential issue agenda: how to reconcile the president’s responsiveness to public opinion with his institutionalized electoral cycle. We argue that the president’s responsiveness is contingent: that the president allocates agenda space to discretiona...

Recent findings from the literature on imprisonment policy suggest that in addition to traditional social and economic variables, imprisonment rates are also strongly related to changes in the state political environment. In this study, we extend this literature by testing a theory of state punitiveness which posits that (1) the political environme...

In this article we assess competing interpretations of the Immigration and Nationalization Act's 'aggravated felony' provisions, specifically the determination of what state drug offenses properly constitute 'aggravated felonies,' thus subjecting non-citizens to deleterious collateral immigration consequences, including deportation. This issue is c...

One consequence of the president's use of rhetoric to shape the public agenda, the media, and congressional attention is less recognized: presidential rhetoric shapes the priorities of the administrative agents over whom he seeks managerial control. We present statistical tests of the managerial power of presidential policy signals in the case of t...

The Bush Administration will likely have the opportunity to make a number of appointments to the Supreme Court, however such nominations may experience contentious confirmation hearings in the Senate. When such an appointment opportunity does present itself questions are bound to arise concerning the appropriate role of the United States Senate in...

In this article, we examine the proposition that criminal prosecution of sports participants could provide an effective remedy to the problem of sports violence. Section One surveys the widespread violence that has permeated most major sports and explains how sports violence adversely affects the public interest. Section Two considers the viability...

In this article we assess the ramifications of the Court's decision in Bush v. Gore for the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Presidency and the Court. In Part I, we briefly explore how the Court came to help determine the outcome of the election, and reflect on several short-term political effects of the decision. In Part II, we examine the poli...

Objective. One of the most troubling aspects of racial inequality in this country is the conspicuous disparity in rates of incarceration between blacks and whites. The purpose of this research note is to test alternative explanations of racial incarceration disparity. Methods. This research note utilizes multivariate regression analysis to assess s...

Debate rages over whether Americans have become enormously litigious, but little research considers why Americans file cases in the first place or adequately considers rates of litigation over time. This article examines tort filings in ten representative states over a twenty-year period and analyzes the impact of social, political, policy, and leg...

In recent decades, political science has turned to the study of agenda setting as a central aspect of collective decision-making environments. The content of the public agenda – and the issue agendas of political institutions – make significant social change possible. Recent studies suggest that these political institutions are engaged in both comp...

In this study, we build upon the work of Ducat and Dudley's 1989 examination of presidential power and the federal judiciary. Whereas they focused upon presidential fortunes before the federal district courts in cases involving the formal constitutional and statutory powers of the president, we apply a similar model to the voting records of United...

We assess the link between a program's volunteer support and state social capital in the case of the joint implementation of the federal Long-Term Care (LTC) Ombudsman Program by state and federal authorities. This program, which is designed to prevent elder abuse and ensure quality care in long-term facilities, is implemented at the state and loca...

We assess the link between a program's volunteer support and state social capital in the case of the joint implementation of the federal Long-Term Care (LTC) Ombudsman Program by state and federal authorities. This program, which is designed to prevent elder abuse and ensure quality care in long-term facilities, is implemented at the state and loca...

The article addresses problems and concerns related to the upturn of elderly prisoners in recent years. The authors address end-of-life care in prison and the effect of sentencing guidelines on inmate populations among other concerns.

Presidency scholars suggest that the federal bureaucracy has become presidentialized and that the federal agencies have become a primary tool for presidential policy implementation. However, in its review of federal agency litigation, the Supreme Court stands as an important monitor of executive bureaucratic action. Here, the conditions under which...

The empirical evidence regarding the implementation and impact of the federal Patient Self-Determination Act is examined in this article. The Act was designed to increase the use of advance medical directives in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's Cruzan decision. Research shows that the law has had little effect and that the use of advance directive...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 1998. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-188). Microfiche.