James P. Wenzel

The Sources Of Public Confidence In State Courts Experience and Institutions

Although much is known about public attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court, there is very little information about how citizens feel about courts in their own communities. This article hypothesizes that attitudes toward local courts are based primarily on four factors: (a) the actual experiences people have with these courts, (b) the methods by which local judges are selected, (c) the role of the mass media, and (d) various demographic factors. The authors find strong evidence that personal experience matters: Criminal jurors are more supportive of local courts, whereas defendants and those who have participated on either side of a civil case are not. Judicial selection methods, on the other hand, have no effect on citizens’ attitudes, except among some educated citizens. Finally, no media effects are apparent.

Ethnic concerns and Latino party identification

Abstract The accelerated growth of the Latino population in the United States has made Latinos a coveted addition to each major political partys base. In this paper we examine the influence of ethnic concerns on the party identification of Latinos in the U.S. In contrast to previous studies, we account for Latinos’ perceptions of the political parties’ concern for their ethnic interests, allowing such interests to be self-defined. In a multinomial logit analysis of pooled data from three surveys of Latinos taken in 1999, 2004, and 2006, we find such perceptions do affect Latino partisanship, along with variables such as nativity and country of origin or ancestry. We also find a tendency toward independence among Latinos. Finally, we find movement toward the Democratic Party in 2004, once ethnic concerns are taken into account. One implication of the findings is that the party that can best persuade Latinos of their concern for their interests is the party most likely to gain their loyalties; indeed, the parties must earn those loyalties.