The Concept of Judicial Role: A Methodological Note*

Previous studies of the concept of judicial role have suggested a variety of answers to the question of the number of dimensions underlying this concept. This study suggests that at least two clearly distinguishable dimensions: judges' orientations toward precedent, and toward the public they serve, are involved. These two dimensions were combined to yield four ideal role types in order to facilitate comparison with previous studies. There are indications that there are other important dimensions to judicial role and that additional effort is required to further clarify this concept. The concept of role is certainly not a new one in the social sciences, although it has come into prominence only recently in political science. Because judges are perhaps the most role conscious of all off'icials, there is reason to believe that role analysis will prove to be extremely useful in understanding the behavior of judges. Some researchers have in fact described a judge's perception of his role to be the chief characteristic that distinguishes judges from other political decisionmakers. Becker (1964, pp. 13-26) called role "the major independent variable in the judicial equation" and Dolbeare (1967, p. 69) said "the way in which a judge conceives his judicial role is the most significant single factor in the whole decisional process." While role analysis promises to be "potentially the most comprehensive" explanation of judicial decisionmaking, it is also the most "ambiguous" because role has been defined in so many different ways (Goldman and Jahnige, 1971, p. 189;