ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a framework for investigating the impact of legal mobilization on judicial decision-making, specifically assessing the degree of participation by third-parties in property rights and civil rights litigation before the US Supreme Court. Judicial scholarship is not only largely silent on how the Supreme Court has addressed economic regulatory conflicts. Most scholars have gone so far as to dismiss or ignore Supreme Court decision-making on economic questions concerning property rights. Accordingly, this study details several structural discrepancies between an economic and civil rights issue area. The work also addresses how issue-based mobilization influences Supreme Court decision-making and provides a useful starting point for future empirical research. Conversely, high levels of conflictual legal mobilization that attract participation from a wide range of interests carry a greater level of policy information and indicate high public salience, which is something rational policy oriented justices are unlikely to ignore.
