Law, Politics, and Perception: How Policy Preferences
Influence Legal Reasoning |
| |
| Eileen Braman |
| 256 pages, 6.125 x 9.25 |
| 9 figures, 25 tables |
| Cloth ISBN 978-0-8139-2829-6 • $45.00 |
| Constitutionalism
and Democracy
|
| October 2009 |
 |
Are judges' decisions more likely to be based on personal inclinations
or legal authority? The answer, Eileen Braman argues, is both.
Law, Politics, and Perception brings cognitive psychology
to bear on the question of the relative importance of norms of
legal reasoning versus decision markers' policy preferences in
legal decision-making. While Braman acknowledges that decision
makers' attitudes—or, more precisely, their preference for
policy outcomes—can play a significant role in judicial decisions,
she also believes that decision-makers' belief that they must
abide by accepted rules of legal analysis significantly limits
the role of preferences in their judgements. To reconcile these
competing factors, Braman posits that judges engage in "motivated
reasoning," a biased process in which decision-makers are
unconsciously predisposed to find legal authority that is consistent
with their own preferences more convincing than those that go
against them. But Braman also provides evidence that the scope
of motivated reasoning is limited. Objective case facts and accepted
norms of legal reasoning can often inhibit decision makers' ability
to reach conclusions consistent with their preferences.
Constitutionalism and Democracy
Eileen Braman is Assistant Professor
in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University.
