Compensation and compliance : sources of public acceptance of the U.K. Supreme Court's Brexit decision
License
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISBN
ISSN
0023-9216; 1540-5893
Issue Date
Type of Publication
Keyword(s)
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
Law and society review, 2019, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 889-919
Cite
DINAS, Elias, GONZALEZ-OCANTOS, Ezequiel, Compensation and compliance : sources of public acceptance of the U.K. Supreme Court’s Brexit decision, Law and society review, 2019, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 889-919 - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/70841
Abstract
The perception that a high court's decision is binding and final is a crucial prerequisite for its ability to settle political conflicts. Under what conditions are citizens more likely to accept controversial judicial rulings? Mass acceptance is determined, in part, by how rulings are framed during public debate. This paper takes a broad view of the strategies and actors that influence the discursive environment surrounding judgments, calling attention to hitherto unexamined determinants of mass acceptance. We theorize that third parties can boost acceptance by pledging compliance, and that courts can moderate opposition by compensating losers. We also look at how populist attacks on judiciaries, common in contemporary democracies, affect acceptance. We test these propositions using a survey experiment conducted in the aftermath of the UK Supreme Court's Brexit decision, the most salient judgment handed down by this court to date. The paper moves the literature on courts and public opinion beyond the United States, and presents evidence backing largely untested assumptions at the heart of models of judicial behavior regarding the benefits of crafting rulings with an eye on the preferences of key audiences.
Table of Contents
Additional Information
First published online: 13 July 2019