Spring 2025 Political Science UN3210 section 001

JUDICIAL POLITICS

Call Number 13393
Day & Time
Location
TR 10:10am-11:25am
To be announced
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Jeffrey R Lax
Type LECTURE
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

This political science course provides an introduction to the politics of judges, courts, and law in the United States.  We will evaluate law and courts as political institutions and judges as political actors and policy-makers.

The topics we will study include what courts do; how different legal systems function; the operation of legal norms; the U.S. judicial system; the power of courts; constraints on judicial power; judicial review; the origin of judicial institutions; how and why Supreme Court justices make the decisions they do; case selection; conflict between the Court and the other branches of government; decision making and conflict within the judicial hierarchy; the place of courts in American political history; and judicial appointments.

We will explore some common but not necessarily true claims about how judges make decisions and the role of courts.  One set of myths sees judges as unbiased appliers of neutral law, finding law and never making it, with ideology, biography, and politics left at the courthouse door. Another set of myths sees the judiciary as the “least dangerous branch,” making law, not policy, without real power or influence.

Our thematic questions will be:  How much power and discretion do judges have in the U.S?  What drives their decision-making? 

Web Site Vergil
Department Political Science
Enrollment 71 students (70 max) as of 9:06AM Sunday, December 8, 2024
Status Full
Subject Political Science
Number UN3210
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Section key 20251POLS3210W001