How policy influence varies with race and gender in the US courts of appeals

• Main Author: Rachael K. Hinkle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2021-07-01
• Series: Research & Politics
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680211029432

Even when women and people of color achieve positions of political power, institutional norms may combine with social constructions of difference to create a system in which power is distributed disproportionately. Such a pattern is evident in the US courts of appeals. Each case is resolved by a panel of three judges who also decide whether the opinion should be binding precedent (i.e., published) or not. I theorized that the variety of views and extended deliberation often attributed to diversity in a small-group environment depressed the rate of publication if judges were willing to compromise on the outcome but less willing to publish an opinion after such compromise. Using a massive original dataset of virtually all dispositive circuit opinions from 2002 to 2012, I found that homogeneous panels (98% of which are composed of white men) shaped policy more frequently than diverse panels.