The European Court of Justice is generally known to use its institutional role to advance European integration. Scholars have disagreed, however, on the extent to which the Court fears and anticipates negative reactions to its rulings from the Member States. Without a possibility to access internal deliberations, such strategic behaviour by the Court makes it empirically challenging to identify its preferences relative to other actors. I tackle this problem using an item-response theory model designed to estimate institutional preferences from cases concerning procedural and competence disputes. I find that the Court leans on average towards more supranational positions, while also systematically adjusting its rulings in response to Member States’ preferences. Controlling for these effects reveals the European Court of Justice to be even more partial to supranationalism than the pattern of its decisions suggests.
BafumiJGelmanAParkDK, et al. (2005)
Practical issues in implementing and understanding Bayesian ideal point estimation. Political Analysis13(2): 171–187.
2.
BaileyMA (2007)
Comparable preference estimates across time and institutions for the court, congress, and presidency. American Journal of Political Science51(3): 433–448.
3.
BlaubergerMSchmidtSK (2017)
The European Court of Justice and its political impact. West European Politics40(4): 907–918.
4.
BradleyK (1988)
The European Court and the legal basis of community legislation. European Law Review13(6): 379–402.
5.
BradleyK (2011) Powers and procedures in the EU constitution: Legal bases and the court. In: CraigPde BúrcaG (eds) The Evolution of Eu Law.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 85–110.
6.
BurleyA-MMattliW (1993)
Europe before the court: A political theory of legal integration. International Organization47(1): 41–76.
7.
CarrubbaCJGabelMHanklaC (2008)
Judicial behavior under political constraints: Evidence from the European Court of Justice. American Political Science Review102(4): 435–452.
8.
CarrubbaCJGabelMHanklaC (2012)
Understanding the role of the European Court of Justice in European integration. American Political Science Review106(1): 214–223.
9.
Castro-MonteroJLAlblasEDyevreA, et al. (2018)
The Court of Justice and treaty revision: A case of strategic leniency?European Union Politics19(4): 570–596.
10.
ClintonJJackmanSRiversD (2004)
The statistical analysis of roll call data. American Political Science Review98(2): 355–370.
11.
DaviesG (2016)
The European Union legislature as an agent of the European Court of Justice. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies54(4): 846–861.
12.
DyevreA (2010)
Unifying the field of comparative judicial politics: Towards a general theory of judicial behaviour. European Political Science Review2(2): 297–327.
13.
EngelA (2018) The Choice of Legal Basis for Acts of the European Union: Competence Overlaps, Institutional Preferences, and Legal Basis Litigation.
New York:
Springer.
14.
FarrellHHéritierA (2007)
Introduction: Contested competences in the European Union. West European Politics30(2): 227–243.
15.
GarbenS (2015)
Confronting the competence conundrum: Democratising the European Union through an expansion of its legislative powers. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies35(1): 55–89.
16.
GelmanACarlinJBSternHS, et al. (2013) Bayesian Data Analysis. 3rd ed.
Boca Raton:
Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.
17.
HagemannS (2007)
Applying ideal point estimation methods to the council of ministers. European Union Politics8(2): 279–296.
18.
HartlappM (2018)
Power shifts via the judicial arena: How annulments cases between EU institutions shape competence allocation. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies56(6): 1429–1445.
19.
HermansenSSLNaurinD (2020) Will do? Selecting judges on the basis of policy preferences or performance indicators. Working Paper. ECPR Joint Sessions, Mons 2019.
20.
HixSCrombezC (2005)
Extracting ideal point estimates from actors’ preferences in the EU constitutional negotiations. European Union Politics6(3): 353–376.
21.
HixSNouryARolandG (2006)
Dimensions of politics in the European Parliament. American Journal of Political Science50(2): 494–520.
22.
JackmanS (2000)
Estimation and inference are missing data problems: Unifying social science statistics via Bayesian simulation. Political Analysis8(4): 307–332.
23.
JupilleJ (2004) Procedural Politics: Issues, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
24.
JupilleJ (2007)
Contested procedures: Ambiguities, interstices and EU institutional change. West European Politics30(2): 301–320.
25.
KaedingMSelckTJ (2005)
Mapping out political Europe: Coalition patterns in EU decision-making. International Political Science Review26(3): 271–290.
26.
KelemenRD (2012)
The political foundations of judicial independence in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy19(1): 43–58.
27.
KenneySJ (1998)
The members of the Court of Justice of the European communities. Columbia Journal of European Law5: 101–134.
28.
KönigT (2001) Pivotal Politics in European Legislation: An Event History Analysis of the EU Legislative Decision-Making Process From 1984 to 1995. Delivered to ECPR Joint Sessions 2001, Grenoble.
29.
KubinecR (2019a) Generalized Ideal Point Models for Time-Varying and Missing-Data Inference. OSF Preprints.
LarssonONaurinD (2016)
Judicial independence and political Uncertainty: How the risk of override affects the court of justice of the EU. International Organization70(2): 377–408.
32.
LindstädtRSlapinJBWielenRJV (2011)
Balancing competing demands: Position taking and election proximity in the European Parliament. Legislative Studies Quarterly36: 37–70.
33.
LoJ (2018)
Dynamic ideal point estimation for the European Parliament, 1980–2009. Public Choice176: 229–246.
34.
MaleckiM (2012)
Do ECJ judges all speak with the same voice? Evidence of divergent preferences from the judgments of chambers. Journal of European Public Policy19(1): 59–75.
35.
MartinsenDS (2015a) An Ever More Powerful Court? The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
36.
MartinsenDS (2015b)
Judicial influence on policy outputs? The political constraints of legal integration in the European Union. Comparative Political Studies48(12): 1622–1660.
37.
MattliWSlaughterA-M (1998)
Revisiting the European Court of Justice. International Organization52(1): 177–209.
38.
MoravcsikA (1999)
A new statecraft? Supranational entrepreneurs and international cooperation. International Organization53(2): 267–306.
39.
PollackMA (1997)
Delegation, agency, and agenda setting in the European Community. International Organization51(1): 99–134.
40.
PollackMA (2013)
The new EU legal history: What’s new, what’s missing?American University International Law Review28: 1257–1310.
41.
RasmussenH (1986) On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice: A Comparative Study in Judicial Policymaking.
Leiden:
Nijhoff.
42.
RasmussenM (2014)
Revolutionizing European law: A history of the Van Gend en Loos judgment. International Journal of Constitutional Law12(1): 136–163.
43.
ScharpfFW (2012)
Perpetual momentum: Directed and unconstrained?Journal of European Public Policy19(1): 127–139.
44.
SegalJACoverAD (1989)
Ideological values and the votes of U.S. Supreme Court justices. American Political Science Review83(2): 557–565.
45.
SegalJASpaethHJ (2002) The Supreme Court and the attitudinal model revisited.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
46.
SelckTJ (2004)
On the dimensionality of European Union legislative decision-making. Journal of Theoretical Politics16(2): 203–222.
47.
ShapiroM (1980)
Comparative law and comparative politics. Southern California Law Review53: 537–542.
48.
SweetAS (2004) The Judicial Construction of Europe.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
49.
SweetASBrunellTL (1998)
Constructing a supranational constitution: Dispute resolution and governance in the European Community. American Political Science Review92(1): 63–81.
50.
SweetASBrunellTL (2012)
The European Court of Justice, state noncompliance, and the politics of override.The American Political Science Review106(1): 204–213.
51.
ThomsonRBoerefijnJStokmanF (2004)
Actor alignments in European Union decision making. European Journal of Political Research43(2): 237–261.
52.
TsebelisGGarrettG (2000)
Legislative politics in the European Union.European Union Politics1(1): 9–36.
53.
TsebelisGGarrettG (2001)
The institutional foundations of intergovernmentalism and supranationalism in the European Union. International Organization55(2): 357–390.
54.
VauchezA (2012)
Keeping the dream alive: The European Court of Justice and the transnational fabric of integrationist jurisprudence. European Political Science Review4(1): 51–71.
55.
WasserfallenF (2010)
The judiciary as legislator? How the European Court of Justice shapes policy-making in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy17(8): 1128–1146.
56.
WeilerJH (1991)
The transformation of Europe. The Yale Law Journal100(8): 2403–2483.
57.
WeilerJH (1994)
A quiet revolution: The European Court of Justice and its interlocutors. Comparative Political Studies26: 510–534.
58.
ZhangAH (2016)
The faceless court. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law38: 71–135.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
