To what extent do the justices on the Supreme Court behave strategically? In Strategy on the United States Supreme Court, Saul Brenner and Joseph M. Whitmeyer investigate the answers to this question and reveal that justices are substantially less strategic than many Supreme Court scholars believe. By examining the research to date on each of the justice's important activities, Brenner and Whitmeyer's work shows that the justices often do not cast their certiorari votes in accord with the outcome-prediction strategy, that the other members of the conference coalition bargain successfully with the majority opinion writer in less than 6 percent of the situations, and that most of the fluidity in voting on the Court is nonstrategic. This work is essential to understanding how strategic behavior - or its absence - influences the decisions of the Supreme Court and, as a result, American politics and society.

This book presents the first comprehensive model of policymaking by strategically-rational justices who pursue their own policy preferences in the Supreme Court's multi-stage decision-making process.

2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to end segregation in public schools. Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" Here, in a concise, moving narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas. Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph--but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court--or President Eisenhower--have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?

Over the course of the past decade, the behavioral analysis of decisions by the Supreme Court has turned to game theory to gain new insights into this important institution in American politics. Game theory highlights the role of strategic interactions between the Court and other institutions in the decisions the Court makes as well as in the relations among the justices as they make their decisions. Rather than assume that the justices’ votes reveal their sincere preferences, students of law and politics have come to examine how the strategic concerns of the justices lead to "sophisticated" behavior as they seek to maximize achievement of their goals when faced with constraints on their ability to do so. In Institutional Games and the U.S. Supreme Court, James Rogers, Roy Flemming, and Jon Bond gather various essays that use game theory to explain the Supreme Court's interactions with Congress, the states, and the lower courts. Offering new ways of understanding the complexity and consequences of these interactions, the volume joins a growing body of work that considers these influential interactions among various branches of the U.S. government. Contributors: Kenneth A. Shepsle, Andrew De Martin, James R. Rogers, Christopher Zorn, Georg Vanberg, Cliff Carrubba, Thomas Hammond, Christopher Bonneau, Reginald Sheehan, Charles Cameron, Lewis A. Kornhauser, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Matthew Stephenson, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Susan D. Haire, Lawrence Baum

What influences decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court? For decades social scientists focused on the ideology of individual justices. Supreme Court Decision Making moves beyond this focus by exploring how justices are influenced by the distinctive features of courts as institutions and their place in the political system. Drawing on interpretive-historical institutionalism as well as rational choice theory, a group of leading scholars consider such factors as the influence of jurisprudence, the unique characteristics of supreme courts, the dynamics of coalition building, and the effects of social movements. The volume's distinguished contributors and broad range make it essential reading for those interested either in the Supreme Court or the nature of institutional politics. Original essays contributed by Lawrence Baum, Paul Brace, Elizabeth Bussiere, Cornell Clayton, Sue Davis, Charles Epp, Lee Epstein, Howard Gillman, Melinda Gann Hall, Ronald Kahn, Jack Knight, Forrest Maltzman, David O'Brien, Jeffrey Segal, Charles Sheldon, James Spriggs II, and Paul Wahlbeck.