Norway’s Supreme Court is one of the most powerful Supreme Courts in Europe. This position is in large parts due to the role and expansion of the law clerks on the Court. Beginning in 1957 with a single clerk, the number of law clerks has increased dramatically. Today, the clerks outnumber the justices, and their tasks have expanded considerably. In 1957 the task was to prepare civil appeals. Today, clerks assist in most stages of the Court’s decisional process, including the writing of the final decision. The expansion and institutionalisation of the clerk unit have enabled the justices to commence on policymaking and on developing the law. The law clerks have been key in the development of a more proactive and powerful Norwegian Supreme Court. This book is the first comprehensive study of law clerks in a European Supreme Court. It will be valuable to lawyers, historians and political scientists who care about the expanding role of courts and the impact of courts on politics, society, and the legal system.

Waltenburg and Swinford provide a detailed and systematic examination of state government activity before the U.S. Supreme Court. They provide an explanatory model of state litigation behavior that both rests upon a solid theoretical perspective and places state decisions in a larger political context. After an examination of the evolution of U.S. constitutional law on issues of direct state concern, Waltenburg and Swinford focus most of their attention on qualitative and quanitative analyses of the behavior over time of states in all their roles before the Court. Scholars and other researchers interested in judicial decision-making, Constitutional Law, and inter-governmental relations will find this a particularly useful study.

The Court's decisions are interpreted and disseminated via the media. During this process, the media paints an image of the Court and its business. Like any artist, the media has license regarding what to cover and the amount of attention devoted to any aspect of the Court and its business. Some cases receive tremendous attention, while others languish on the back pages or are ignored. These selection effects create a skewed picture of the Court and its work, and might affect public attitudes toward the Court. Indeed, studies of media coverage of other governmental institutions reveal that when, and how, their policy decisions are covered has implications for the public's understanding of, compliance with, support for, and cynicism about the policy. This book uncovers and describes this coverage and compares it to the confirmation hearings, the Court's actual work, even its members. Rorie Spill Solberg and Eric N. Waltenburg analyze media coverage of nominations and confirmation hearings, the justices' "extra-curricular" activities and their retirements/deaths, and the Court's opinions, and compare this coverage to analyses of confirmation transcripts and the Court's full docket. Solberg and Waltenburg contend that media now cover the Court and its personnel more similarly to its coverage of other political institutions. Journalists still regurgitate a mythology supported by the justices, a "cult of the robe," wherein unbiased and apolitical judges mechanically base their decisions upon the law and the Constitution. Furthermore, they argue the media also focus on the "cult of personality," wherein the media emphasize certain attributes of the justices and their work to match the public's preferences for subject matter and content. The media's portrayal, then, may undercut the Court's legitimacy and its reservoir of good will.

The Court's decisions are interpreted and disseminated via the media. During this process, the media paints an image of the Court and its business. Like any artist, the media has license regarding what to cover and the amount of attention devoted to any aspect of the Court and its business. Some cases receive tremendous attention, while others languish on the back pages or are ignored. These selection effects create a skewed picture of the Court and its work, and might affect public attitudes toward the Court. Indeed, studies of media coverage of other governmental institutions reveal that when, and how, their policy decisions are covered has implications for the public's understanding of, compliance with, support for, and cynicism about the policy. This book uncovers and describes this coverage and compares it to the confirmation hearings, the Court's actual work, even its members. Rorie Spill Solberg and Eric N. Waltenburg analyze media coverage of nominations and confirmation hearings, the justices' "extra-curricular" activities and their retirements/deaths, and the Court's opinions, and compare this coverage to analyses of confirmation transcripts and the Court's full docket. Solberg and Waltenburg contend that media now cover the Court and its personnel more similarly to its coverage of other political institutions. Journalists still regurgitate a mythology supported by the justices, a "cult of the robe," wherein unbiased and apolitical judges mechanically base their decisions upon the law and the Constitution. Furthermore, they argue the media also focus on the "cult of personality," wherein the media emphasize certain attributes of the justices and their work to match the public's preferences for subject matter and content. The media's portrayal, then, may undercut the Court's legitimacy and its reservoir of good will.

How do the justices of a nation's highest court arrive at their decisions? In the context of the US Supreme Court, the answer to this question is well established: justices seek to enshrine policy preferences in their decisions, but they do so in a manner consistent with `the law' and in recognition that they are members of an institution with defined expectations and constraints. In other words, a justice's behaviour is a function of motives, means, and opportunities. Using Norway as a case study, this book shows that these forces are not peculiar to the decisional behaviour of American justices. Employing a modified attitudinal model, Grendstad, Shaffer and Waltenburg establish that the preferences of Norway's justices are related to their decisions. Consequently, the authors show how an understanding of judicial behaviour developed and most fully tested in the American judicial system is transportable to the courts of other countries.