MEASURING POLITICAL PREFERENCES

Theory: When analysts adopt surrogates of actors' political preference s for purposes unanticipated by the inventors of those measures, they often stretch (but not explicitly assess) the range of reliability and validity. Hypotheses: The consequences pushing measures beyond their intended purposes may significantly impact research findings, as well as the conclusions drawn from those findings. Methods: ''Methodologica l audit'' of measures developed by Segal and Cover (1989) to represent the political preferences of justices on the United States Supreme Co urt. Mainly regression analysis using the Segal/Cover scores and vote data drawn from the United States Supreme Court Judicial Database. Res ults: Analysts would be well advised to weigh carefully whether adequa te tests have been performed before adopting others' preference measur es for their own research. More specific conclusions are: 1) scholars should invoke the Segal/Cover scores in the set of circumstances indic ated by their developers: aggregated individual-level decisions in civ il liberties cases; and 2) students of the judicial process who seek t o explore phenomena other than aggregated individual-level voting in c ivil Liberties cases ought to give serious thought to devising new sur rogates for judicial preferences.