Ideological Consistency and Attitudinal Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts

According to attitudinal theorists, justices on the U. S. Supreme Court decide cases largely on political preferences that fall within one dimension of ideology. The focus of this study is to test whether a unidimensional ideological model explains the voting behavior of Canadian Supreme Court justices (1992-1997). The factor analysis results in three areas of law, two of which have never been examined in this way in Canada, provide substantial evidence of ideological voting. Yet, unlike the U.S. Rehnquist Court, the Canadian justices exhibit a much higher degree of ideological complexity. These findings call into question the widely-held assumption of unidimensional decision making that is in vogue in the U.S. literature today, and suggest that attitudinal theorists and comparative law scholars must be cognizant that multiple dimensions of attitudinal voting might occur in high courts that are not as ideologically polarized as the U.S. Supreme Court.