Asking versus telling: The supreme court’s strategic use of questions and statements during oral arguments
By: Sorenson, Maron W
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: Political Research Quarterly Description: 76(4), Dec, 2023: p.1559-1572.
In:
Political Research QuarterlySummary: Supreme Court oral arguments are often characterized as the Court rapidly firing questions at attorneys who struggle to keep up; however, nearly half of the Court’s utterances come not as questions but as statements. I ask whether patterns of questioning and commenting behavior during oral arguments can predict case outcomes and justice votes. To answer this question, I develop a theory of strategic communication that accounts for the differential ways justices—and other strategic actors—use queries and comments during arguments. Using transcripts from 1981 to 2019, I code for use of questions and statements, finding the two theoretically and empirically distinct: where questions increase a party’s chances of winning, statements increase their chance of losing.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10659129231164604
| Item type | Current location | Call number | Vol info | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 76(4), Dec, 2023: p.1559-1572 | Available | AR131206 |
Supreme Court oral arguments are often characterized as the Court rapidly firing questions at attorneys who struggle to keep up; however, nearly half of the Court’s utterances come not as questions but as statements. I ask whether patterns of questioning and commenting behavior during oral arguments can predict case outcomes and justice votes. To answer this question, I develop a theory of strategic communication that accounts for the differential ways justices—and other strategic actors—use queries and comments during arguments. Using transcripts from 1981 to 2019, I code for use of questions and statements, finding the two theoretically and empirically distinct: where questions increase a party’s chances of winning, statements increase their chance of losing.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10659129231164604
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