Supreme Court Justice's Economic Policy-Making in a Social Democracy: The Case of Norway

Supreme Court justices are important policy-making players who render final and consequential decisions in cases on economic conflicts between public and private interests. Their decisions determine winners and losers and tap explicitly into the influential and dominant left-right cleavage of Western political systems. In this paper we ask what forces explain decisional behavior of Supreme Court justices in economic rights cases between a private and a public party? We employ multi-level analysis to measure the effects of forces at the individual, panel and case levels. We analyze all unanimous and non-unanimous economic decisions of Norwegian Supreme Court justices made in five-justice panels from 1963 to 2012 (NCases = 806; NJustices =97; NVotes = 4,000). Forces at all levels contribute to an explanation of the justices’ votes. At the individual level, justices appointed by a socialist government or justices with former employment at the Prosecutor General’s Office are more likely to vote for the public party, while former law professors or senior justices are more likely to vote for the private party. At the panel level, when a majority of justices on the panel have been appointed by a socialist government, they are more likely to vote for the public party. Finally, at the case level, when the public party is the plaintiff, or when the outcome of the case is non-unanimous, the justices are more likely to vote for the private party. These results suggest that judicial behavior is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.