Courts are everywhere in American politics and public policy, deciding elections, interpreting fundamental rights and addressing issues ranging from environmental harms to social and economic inequality and the fallout from public health disasters. This Primer explores the complex and shifting role of courts in American politics and policy-making and introduces students to social science methods.
The bulk of the materials center on the ongoing debate about how and when courts are effective policy-makers in an institutionally fragmented and ideologically fractious political system. After gaining a better understanding what courts do, we’ll consider whether they tend to serve core democratic values. Along the way, you will learn the basics of how to frame a question, set forth competing hypotheses and use case studies to probe their validity.
After working through these materials, it is hoped that you will better appreciate how social science methods serve as a lens that brings some issues into focus while obscuring others. From this perspective, this text is best understood as part of a broader, well-rounded liberal arts education, which explores how different disciplines generate knowledge and how combining different modes of analysis—scientific, social scientific, and humanistic—can yield a deeper and more empathetic understanding of the world around us.
After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School and clerking for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, John Barnes (Jeb) practiced as a commercial litigator in Boston and San Francisco. In 1994, he left the practice of law to pursue a doctorate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jeb joined the USC faculty in 2001, where he teaches classes in law, American politics and public policy and has published numerous university-press books, edited volumes, and peer-reviewed articles on topics ranging from the asbestos crisis and litigation reform to disability rights and research methods.