How far does the Supreme Court act as a policymaker? Ruth Aitken, Hannah Smallwood & Lindsay Stirton investigate
Some 50 years ago, noted Yale political scientist Robert A Dahl drew attention to the importance of the US Supreme Court as one of the governing institutions of the US. “Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy Maker”, (1957) 6 Journal of Public Law 279, was a seminal contribution to the study of “judicial politics” (as it became known). In the UK, the role of courts in making policy—particularly the senior appellate courts—has occasionally come under academic as well as broader public and political scrutiny. Yet, unlike in the US, the role of our final court as the apex of a branch of government has only rarely attracted the same attention.
At the end of the second year since the establishment of the UK Supreme Court (UKSC), we want to examine the role of the court as a national (or more accurately in the context of the UK, a cross-national) policymaking body. In what way can
