Disagreeable rhetoric, shaming, and the strategy of dissenting on the U.S. supreme court

Abstract

Why do U.S. Supreme Court justices direct caustic rhetoric against each other in their opinions? In this article, I test two alternative theories for the use of this rhetoric. The coalition maintenance hypothesis maintains that the rhetoric is a shaming mechanism directed against close colleagues to impose costs on dissensus, while the polarization hypothesis suggests that it is a consequence of the rise of affective polarization on the Court. Using an augmented version of the Supreme Court Database, supplemented with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) data, as well as other original data, I find evidence for both models, with the coalition maintenance hypothesis more prevalent in recent terms. While there is evidence that the justices deploy caustic rhetoric against their ideological opponents, on the Roberts Court the justices have tended to use this rhetoric strategically to shame close colleagues who are voting against coalitional preferences.