This federal Project Grant award, valued at $183,720 and awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) program (CFDA 47.075), supports collaborative research on democratic accountability and judicial legitimacy. The project tracks citizens' attitudes toward a judicial reform effort and the judiciary as the reforms are implemented, judges are elected, and directly elected judges take office. It aims to examine how direct election of judges may impact institutional separation of powers, economic development, and international relations. The research involves a four-wave panel survey and survey experiments to disentangle theories on determinants of public support for judicial institutions, evaluate how the electoral connection affects citizens' legal attitudes and engagement with courts, and assess the reform's impact on their willingness to obey and tolerate non-compliance with judicial decisions. This project is being conducted by The Pennsylvania State University, a public research university that frequently serves as a prime grant recipient for NSF and other federal agencies across social and behavioral science research areas.
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