Ideology is a set of beliefs, values, and ideas about society that shape our understanding of the world. They can have a strong impact on the way lawyers interpret legal norms, although the public expects them to set aside their personal views and act neutrally. In the case of judges in particular, neutrality is the basis for trust in the legal system and justice. A new study by researchers from INPSY and the Faculty of Law MU shows the ways in which ideology can enter into legal interpretation.
Petr Palíšek and Jan Šerek, together with their colleagues from the Masaryk University Faculty of Law, Terezie Smejkalová and Markéta Štěpáníková, have published a study examining the relationship between the ideology of lawyers on how they interpret the legal concept of public order. They found a link with the following aspects of political ideology:
- right-wing authoritarianism - authoritarian and conservative attitudes, emphasis on obedience (social axis)
- orientation towards social dominance - acceptance of social inequalities (economic axis)
- populist beliefs - criticism of the current government or elites and emphasis on "popular" support
The study involved 989 respondents, 336 of whom were lawyers and 612 laypeople. The questionnaire included hypothetical situations related to public policy and questions on the aforementioned ideological aspects of the respondents' worldview.
Public policy can be described as a legal tool that society uses to protect its core values. However, it is not precisely defined in the legal order. Therefore, the researchers from Masaryk University in the project of Terezie Smejkalová (the author of the article) explain its use by means of the social representation of public order, i.e. what are the shared ideas of what public order is. The public order consists of a core and a periphery. The core represents the widely shared values of society, which are mostly unquestioned by its members. In contrast, peripheral beliefs may relate to issues on which there is no social consensus, such as LGBTQ+ rights or members of minority religions, and the results suggest that they are linked to political ideology.
Core or periphery?
The results of the study mostly found a connection between the views of lawyers on the periphery of public policy and political ideology. However, a surprise was the scenario concerning Christian prayer in public classrooms, which lawyers clearly perceived as inconsistent with public policy, although a link to ideology would be offered here.
An important finding was that right-wing authoritarianism emerged as the most salient ideological variable that explained responses to public policy scenarios related to, for example, gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate protests. The economic axis of ideology does not seem to be as central in the lawyers' judgments and rather complements right-wing authoritarianism. Surprisingly, populist beliefs were intertwined only to a limited extent. A possible explanation is that the hypothetical situations reflected current social issues where these ideological beliefs were not as evident as in other settings or contexts.
However, the judgments affecting the periphery of public order are obviously not exclusively ideological. Other factors, such as the affective components of ideology or the (implicit) legal philosophy of a particular person, might provide explanations for other judgments in these scenarios.
However, it seems that political beliefs may enter into public policy decisions in some important situations. Understanding the influence of ideology on legal interpretation thus appears to be crucial for setting up a just legal system. There is a risk of a bias towards personal views when deciding on peripheral (controversial) elements of public policy, which is contrary to the requirement of objectivity and impartiality. The research team therefore recommends that judges and justices avoid using public policy to derive legal rules unless they are firmly convinced that they are based on a core of public policy that is consistent with general social norms and values.
Recommended citation:
Palíšek, P., Smejkalová, T., Šerek, J., & Štěpáníková, M. (2025). How ideology shapes legal concepts: The case of public order. Psychology Public Policy and Law. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000449
