Still the Least Dangerous Branch? Lessons from Current Law, Courts & Justice Research

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This page features compilations of links to data collections, authors, and journals for political science research on law. courts, and justice.

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ORIGINAL PROJECT: U.S. Presidents' Positions on Roll Call VotesPres. Jackson's Positions:
21st House     21st Senate
22nd House     22nd Senate
23rd House     23rd Senate
24th House     24th Senate

QUIZ YOURSELF: What is explanatory information?

Characteristic of scientific knowledge; signifying that a conclusion can be derived from a set of general propositions and specific initial considerations; providing a systematic, empirically verified understanding of why a phenomenon occurs as it does.

Answer: Hover over the box!More of this: Review Research Methods

Teach Political Analysis

Theory & Concepts:
The Essentials of Political Analysis, 6th Edition. Classic introductory text, clear writing, helps students learn, great ancillaries. More info.

Companions for SPSS, Stata, Excel & R. Practice with software of your choice.

MORE FOR TEACHERS: Sample Course Syllabi featuring our textbooks, varied software, with/without paper assignments

Review Terms for 5 Minutes - Pick chapters or just press play for quick study

Run Live R Demos in Browser - Excellent for online teaching

Links to More Resources for Teaching Political Analysis

Watch and Learn


How to Perform a Chi-Square Test for Independence
Includes making table of expected values, from Eugene O'Loughlin (8:42).

MORE VIDEOS: Lecture Videos for The Essentials of Political Analysis

Learn How-To Do It with Video Tutorials for R, Stata, SPSS, and Excel


Calculating the 95% Confidence Interval after a T-Test
From Todd Grande (6:57)

Blogs, Podcasts & Journals

Criminal Justice Studies: .a quarterly refereed journal, publishes articles that deal with substantive criminal justice and criminological issues

Journal of Experimental Criminology: .focuses on high quality experimental and quasi-experimental research in the development of evidence based crime and justice policy

Law & Society Review: .peer-reviewed publication for work bearing on the relationship between society and the legal process

Justice System Journal: .Interdisciplinary journal that publishes original research articles on all aspects of law, courts, court administration, judicial behavior, and the impact of all of these on public and social policy.

Volokh Conspiracy: .Posts about law and politics

See All Political Science Podcasts

Law Courts Justice Data Sites

Transitional Justice Research Collaborative: .data on three primary transitional justice mechanisms - human rights prosecutions, truth commissions, and amnesties - for 109 democratic transitions in 86 countries around the world, from 1970-2012.

Create Cross-Tabulations with US Circuit Court Data: .This resource allows you to analyze some of the variables coded in Phase Three of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals Database (2003-2010).

Religion and State Project Constitutions Dataset: .Constitutional clauses that address religion for 177 countries on a yearly basis between 1990 and 2008.

Judicial Research Initiative: .From the University of South Carolina, easy to navigate site contains key datasets for judicial behavior research

Supreme Court Citation Network Data: .This page contains links to two sets of data on citations in the U.S. Supreme Court from the U.S. Reports.

See All Law Courts Justice Data Sites

New Law Courts Justice Articles with Replication Data

(Non)Renewewable Terms and Judicial Independence in the European Court of Human RightsØyvind Stiansen (2022)

All the President's Justices? The Impact of Presidential Co-Partisanship on Supreme Court Job ApprovalBrandon L. Bartels; *Eric Kramon (2022)

Ascriptive Characteristics and Perceptions of Impropriety in the Rule of Law: Race, Gender, and Public Assessments of Whether Judges Can Be ImpartialYoshikuni Ono; Michael A. Zilis (2022)

Can International Courts Enhance Domestic Judicial Review? Separation of Powers and the European Court of JusticeJay Krehbiel; Sivaram Cheruvu (2022)

Greater Public Confidence in the United States Supreme Court Predicts More Jurisdiction StrippingJoseph Ura; Patrick Wohlfarth (2022)

Hate Speech Prosecution of Politicians and Its Effect on Support for the Legal System and DemocracyRoderik Rekker (2022)

How Interpersonal Contact Affects Appellate ReviewMichael Nelson; Morgan Hazelton; Rachael Hinkle (2022)

Campaign Donations, Judicial Recusal, and Disclosure: A Field ExperimentDane Thorley; Jonathan S. Krasno; *Donald P. Green; Costas Panagopoulos; Michael Schwam-Baird (2021)

Constitutional Reform and the Gender Diversification of Peak CourtsNancy Arrington; Leeann Bass; Adam Glynn; Jeffrey K. Staton; Brian Delgado; *Staffan I. Lindberg (2021)

Descriptive Representation and Public Support for Supreme Court NomineesAndrew Stone; Jaclyn Kaslovsky; *Jon Rogowski (2021)

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= Data

= Details
Also see Journal Archives | Author Replication Data | All Subfield Articles

Authors with Datasets

Matthew Hall .University of Notre Dame, see replication data and large datasets.

Lee Epstein .Washington University in St. Louis, see dataverse.

Paul Wahlbeck .Mostly about the U.S. Supreme Court

John Kastellec .Princeton Univ., see dataverse.

Andrew Martin .Washington Univ. in St. Louis

Joseph Ura .Texas A&M University

Chris Bonneau .University of Pittsburgh, see dataverse page.

Tom Clark .Emory Univ., see dataverse.

See All Authors with Datasets