Chris Hanretty – författare

This book offers the first quantitative study of decision-making on the UK Supreme Court. Covering the court's first ten years, it examines all stages of the court's decision-making process--from permission to appeal to the decision on the final outcome. The analysis of these distinct stages shows that legal factors matter. The most important predictor of whether an appellant will succeed in the Supreme Court is whether they've been able to convince judges in lower courts. The most important predictor of whether a case will be heard at all is whether it has been written up in multiple weekly law reports.But "legal factors mattering" doesn't mean that judges on the court are simply identical expressions of the law. The nature of the UK's court system means that judges arrive on the court as specialists in one or more areas of law (such as commercial law or family law), or even systems of law (the court's Scottish and Northern Irish judges). These specialisms markedly affect behavior on the court. Specialists in an area of law are more likely to hear cases in that area, and are more likely to write the lead opinion in that area. Non-specialists are less likely to disagree with specialists, and so disagreement is more likely to emerge when multiple specialists end up on the panel. Although political divisions between the justices do exist, these differences are much less marked than the divisions between experts in different areas of the law. The best way of understanding the UK Supreme Court is therefore to see it as a court of specialists.

What is the nature of mass opinion on public policies? And what role do citizens' positions on policy issues play in their political choices? This book re-examines these questions, which lie at the heart of fundamental debates about whether democratic elections make policymakers responsive to citizens' policy preferences. The answers that political science currently provides to these questions tend to reflect one of two contrasting perspectives. The 'ideological voter' account suggests that citizens' opinions across different policies are organised well enough by ideology that political choice reduces to comparing positions on a small number of ideological dimensions, often characterised as an economic left-right dimension and a social liberal-conservative dimension. This simplifies democratic policy responsiveness. The 'innocent voter' account, by contrast, suggests that most citizens lack meaningful policy opinions on most issues. They express policy opinions that lack stability and ideological organisation, except where they simply mimic the policies espoused by the parties they support. This severely limits the prospects for democratic policy responsiveness.This book argues for a third perspective: an 'idiosyncratic voter' account. This says that citizens develop meaningful and stable policy opinions on different sets of issues, but the combinations of policy opinions they form on these issues are often idiosyncratic rather than ideologically organised. Drawing on data from a large panel survey conducted in Britain in 2018-19, the authors show that both the ideological voter and innocent voter accounts explain important aspects of mass policy opinion and the degree of impact it has on individuals' political choices. Nonetheless, idiosyncratic policy opinion is widespread on many issues and significantly shapes the political choices that individuals make. As such, idiosyncratic policy opinion serves alongside ideological policy opinion as an additional starting point for democratic policy responsiveness. However, it also complicates democratic policy responsiveness by making electoral politics highly multidimensional and therefore prone to volatility. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

What is the nature of mass opinion on public policies? And what role do citizens' positions on policy issues play in their political choices? This book re-examines these questions, which lie at the heart of fundamental debates about whether democratic elections make policymakers responsive to citizens' policy preferences. The answers that political science currently provides to these questions tend to reflect one of two contrasting perspectives. The 'ideological voter' account suggests that citizens' opinions across different policies are organised well enough by ideology that political choice reduces to comparing positions on a small number of ideological dimensions, often characterised as an economic left-right dimension and a social liberal-conservative dimension. This simplifies democratic policy responsiveness. The 'innocent voter' account, by contrast, suggests that most citizens lack meaningful policy opinions on most issues. They express policy opinions that lack stability and ideological organisation, except where they simply mimic the policies espoused by the parties they support. This severely limits the prospects for democratic policy responsiveness.This book argues for a third perspective: an 'idiosyncratic voter' account. This says that citizens develop meaningful and stable policy opinions on different sets of issues, but the combinations of policy opinions they form on these issues are often idiosyncratic rather than ideologically organised. Drawing on data from a large panel survey conducted in Britain in 2018-19, the authors show that both the ideological voter and innocent voter accounts explain important aspects of mass policy opinion and the degree of impact it has on individuals' political choices. Nonetheless, idiosyncratic policy opinion is widespread on many issues and significantly shapes the political choices that individuals make. As such, idiosyncratic policy opinion serves alongside ideological policy opinion as an additional starting point for democratic policy responsiveness. However, it also complicates democratic policy responsiveness by making electoral politics highly multidimensional and therefore prone to volatility. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Public broadcasters, like the BBC and the Italian broadcaster RAI, are some of the most important media organisations in the world. Politicians are often tempted to interfere in the workings of these broadcasters and when this happens, the results are highly controversial, as both the Blair and Berlusconi governments have discovered. Public Broadcasting and Political Interference explains why some broadcasters are good at resisting politicians’ attempts at interference, and have won a reputation for independence – and why other broadcasters have failed to do the same. It takes a comparative approach of broadcasters in different countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Sweden arguing political independence for public service broadcasters is important because of its contribution to democracy allowing voters alternative sources of information which allow them to choose between electoral alternatives.The book will be of interest to be of interest to policy-makers, scholars and students of political communication, broadcasting and the media.

Public broadcasters, like the BBC and the Italian broadcaster RAI, are some of the most important media organisations in the world. Politicians are often tempted to interfere in the workings of these broadcasters and when this happens, the results are highly controversial, as both the Blair and Berlusconi governments have discovered. Public Broadcasting and Political Interference explains why some broadcasters are good at resisting politicians’ attempts at interference, and have won a reputation for independence – and why other broadcasters have failed to do the same. It takes a comparative approach of broadcasters in different countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Sweden arguing political independence for public service broadcasters is important because of its contribution to democracy allowing voters alternative sources of information which allow them to choose between electoral alternatives.The book will be of interest to be of interest to policy-makers, scholars and students of political communication, broadcasting and the media.