Curriculum Vitae:
spriggs_vitae_9.pdf
Keywords:
American politics, judicial process and politics, U.S. Supreme Court, empirical legal studies
Biographical:
James Spriggs is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government (2009-2012), Professor of Political Science, Professor of Law (by courtesy), and Fellow in the Center for Empirical Research in Law.
Spriggs' research interests fall broadly within the area of law and politics and empirical legal studies. Much of his research focuses on explaining the dynamics of appellate court decision making and impact. His research is especially concerned with how institutions (i.e., formal rules or informal norms) shape the choices that judges make. This perspective focuses on how, in attempting to craft law consistent with their policy preferences, judges are constrained by institutional rules endogenous and exogenous to courts. For instance, his book (with Paul Wahlbeck and Forrest Maltzman), Crafting Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game (Cambridge University Press) examines how internal rules on the Court lead justices to act strategically and bargain, negotiate, and compromise.
In recent years, he has principally focused on a variety of topics aimed at modeling law and legal development. His book (with Thomas G. Hansford), The Politics of Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court (Princeton University Press), provides a comprehensive theory of legal change and couples it with empirical analyses spanning more than 50 years. The theoretical model in the book argues that two variables principally drive legal change: (1) the justices’ policy goals; and (2) an element of the norm of precedent that he terms “legal vitality,” which he conceptualizes as the legal authoritativeness of a precedent. Importantly, the model and empirical results demonstrate that the justices’ ideological goals and the norm of precedent are not mutually exclusive considerations, as is often suggested in the literature. Rather, each of these factors is important as the justices attempt to set policy that reflects their preferences and encourages the downstream societal effects they desire. His book also speaks to a central debate in the judicial politics literature by showing that precedent can constrain the choices the justices make. He specifically demonstrates that the justices respond to the need to legitimize their policy choices by following more legally authoritative cases. This effect is most apparent when considering that the justices are more likely to positively interpret a precedent they ideologically disfavor if that precedent is particularly legally vital.
His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Law and Society Review, American Politics Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, Political Analysis, and The Washington University in St. Louis Law Review, The Houston Law Review, the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, and the Illinois Law Review.
He is also the recipient of two National Science Foundation Grants. His most recent NSF grant funds a project that examines the development of the norm of stare decisis in the United States.
Spriggs' current research projects include: using network analysis of legal citations to understand legal development in the United States (with Paul J. Wahlbeck, Timothy R. Johnson, Frank Cross, and James Fowler), explaining the development and institutionalization of American courts in the 18th and 19th centuries(with Paul J. Wahlbeck and Timothy R. Johnson), determining whether and how judges influence public perception of their opinions (with John T. Scott and James R. Zink), examining decision making at the European Court of Justice (with Matt Gabel and Cliff Carrubba), and understanding the causes and consequences of plurality opinions at the U.S. Supreme Court (with David Stras).
Current Couses:
- American Political Institutions (POL 520) introduces graduate students to the literature in American politics. - syllabus
- Topics in American Politics: The Supreme Court (POL 3510) introduces students to the social scientific study of the U.S. Supreme Court. - syllabus
Working Papers:
- Courting the Public: Judicial Behavior and Public Views of Court Decisions
view paper
- Network Analysis and the Law: Measuring the Legal Importance of Precedents at the U.S. Supreme Court (Forthcoming in Political Analysis)
view paper
- Supreme Court Oral Advocacy: Does it affect the Justices’ Decisions? (Forthcoming in Washington University Law Review)
view paper
- An Empirical Analysis of the Trends, Determinants, and Effects of the Length of Majority Opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court
view paper
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