We contribute new empirical evidence on the influence of ideology on the behaviour of European Union judges. As votes and other common proxies for judicial preferences are unavailable, we ask 46 competition law experts to rate the ideology of 51 judges who have served on the General Court of the European Union. The average ratings are then used to explain the outcome of competition and state aid cases (N = 655). We find that, consistent with research on United States courts, the pro-business score of the panel median is a significant predictor of General Court decisions in competition and state aid cases. We find less conclusive evidence for the influence of Europhilia. While showing that attitudes towards private business may matter more than Europhilia in economic cases, our analysis also suggests that expert ratings constitute a viable and promising alternative in settings where other measurement methods are unavailable.
AiCNortonEC (2003).
Interaction terms in logit and probit models. Economics Letters80(1): 123–129.
2.
AlarieBGreenA (2009)
Policy preference change and appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada. Osgoode Hall Law Journal47: 1.
3.
AngristJDPischkeJS (2008) Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion.
Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
4.
BenoitKConwayDLauderdaleBE, et al. (2016)
Crowd-sourced text analysis: Reproducible and agile production of political data. American Political Science Review110(2): 278–295.
5.
BonicaAChiltonASGoldinJ, et al. (2017)
Measuring judicial ideology using law clerk hiring. American Law and Economics Review19(1): 129–161.
6.
BonicaASenM (2017)
A common-space scaling of the American judiciary and legal profession. Political Analysis25(1): 114–121.
7.
Cameron CM and Kornhauser LA (2013) Bargaining on appellate courts. Working paper, New York University School of Law.
8.
CarrubbaCJGabelMHanklaC (2008)
Judicial behavior under political constraints: Evidence from the European Court of Justice. American Political Science Review102(4): 435–452.
9.
de Mendonça LopesF (2019)
Dissent aversion and sequential voting in the Brazilian Supreme Court. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies16(4): 933–954.
10.
EpsteinLKnightJMartinAD (2003)
The political (science) context of judging. Saint Louis University Law Journal47: 783.
11.
EpsteinLLandesWMPosnerRA (2012a)
How business fares in the supreme court. Minnesota Law Review97: 1431.
12.
Epstein L, Landes WM and Posner RA (2013) The Behavior of Federal Judges. A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice.
Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
13.
EpsteinLMartinADQuinnKM, et al. (2012b) Ideology and the study of judicial behavior. In: HansonJ (ed) Ideology, Psychology, and Law. Series in Political Psychology.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 705–728.
14.
EpsteinLMartinADSegalJA, et al. (2007)
The judicial common space.The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization23(2): 303–325.
15.
Estellés-ArolasEGonzález-Ladrón-De-GuevaraF (2012)
Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science38(2): 189–200.
16.
FrankenreiterJ (2015). Workload, tenure, and European Competition Law. Unpublished working paper.
17.
FrankenreiterJ (2017)
The politics of citations at the ECJ—Policy preferences of EU member state governments and the citation behavior of judges at the European court of justice. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies14(4): 813–857.
18.
FrankenreiterJ (2018)
Are advocates general political? Policy preferences of EU member state governments and the voting behavior of members of the European court of justice. Review of Law & Economics14(1): 1–43.
19.
Galton F (1907) Vox populi. Nature 75(7): 450–451.
20.
GerberDJ (1998) Law and Competition in Twentieth Century Europe: Protecting Prometheus.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
21.
Goodman-DelahuntyJGranhagPAHartwigM, et al. (2010)
Insightful or wishful: Lawyers’ ability to predict case outcomes. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law16(2): 133.
HanrettyC (2012)
Dissent in Iberia: The ideal points of justices on the Spanish and Portuguese Constitutional Tribunals. European Journal of Political Research51(5): 671–692.
24.
HanrettyC (2013)
The decisions and ideal points of British law lords. British Journal of Political Science43(03): 703–716.
25.
HermansenSSL (2020)
Building legitimacy: Strategic case allocations in the Court of Justice of the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy27(8): 1–21.
26.
HixS (1999a)
Dimensions and alignments in European Union politics: Cognitive constraints and partisan responses. European Journal of Political Research35(1): 69–106.
27.
HixS (1999b) The Political System of the European Union. European Union Series. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
28.
HixSNouryARolandG (2006)
Dimensions of politics in the European Parliament. American Journal of Political Science50(2): 494–520.
29.
HönnigeC (2009)
The electoral connection: How the pivotal judge affects oppositional success at European constitutional courts. West European Politics32(5): 963–984.
30.
HoogheLMarksGWilsonCJ (2002)
Does left/right structure party positions on European integration?Comparative Political Studies35(8): 965–989.
31.
KelemenRD (2012)
The political foundations of judicial independence in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy19(1): 43–58.
32.
KornhauserLA (1992)
Modeling collegial courts I: Path-dependence. International Review of Law and Economics12(2): 169–185.
33.
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.
34.
LarssonONaurinD (2019)
Split vision: Multidimensionality in the European Union’s legal policy space. International Studies Quarterly63(3): 492–506.
35.
LegalH (2005)
Le contentieux communautaire de la concurrence entre contrôle restreint et pleine juridiction. Concurrences2: 1–2.
36.
LlanosMLemosLB (2013)
Presidential preferences? The supreme federal tribunal nominations in Democratic Brazil. Latin American Politics and Society55(2): 77–105.
37.
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.
38.
MartinADQuinnKM (2002)
Dynamic ideal point estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo for the US Supreme Court, 1953–1999. Political Analysis10(2): 134–153.
39.
NoferMHinzO (2014)
Are crowds on the internet wiser than experts? The case of a stock prediction community. Journal of Business Economics84(3): 303–338.
40.
PinelloDR (1998)
Linking party to judicial ideology in American courts: A meta-analysis. Justice System Journal20: 242.
41.
PollackMA (2001)
International relations theory and European integration. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies39(2): 221–244.
42.
SegalJACoverAD (1989)
Ideological values and the votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices.The American Political Science Review83(2): 557–565.
43.
SegalJAEpsteinLCameronCM, et al. (1995)
Ideological values and the votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices revisited. The Journal of Politics57(3): 812–823.
44.
SegalJASpaethHJ (2002) The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
45.
StaudtNEpsteinLWiedenbeckP (2006)
The ideological component of judging in the taxation context. Washington University Law Review84: 1797.
46.
Stone SweetABrunellT (2012)
The European Court of Justice, state noncompliance, and the politics of override. American Political Science Review106(01): 204–213.
47.
SunsteinCR (ed) (2006) Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary.
Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution Press.
48.
SurowieckiJ (2005) The Wisdom of Crowds.
New York:
Anchor Books.
49.
The Economist (2020) The wizards of Luxembourg. The Economist, 21 May, 24.
50.
TetlockPE (2017) Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?-New Edition.
Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
51.
Van ElsasEVan Der BrugW (2015)
The changing relationship between left–right ideology and euroscepticism, 1973–2010.European Union Politics16(2): 194–215.
52.
Vesterdorf B (2006) Economics in courts: Reflections on the role of judges in assessing economic theories and evidence in the modernised competition law regime. In: Johansson M, Wahl N and Bernitz U (eds) Liber Amicorum in Honour of Sven Norberg: A European for All Seasons. Bruxelles: Bruylant Bruxelles, pp.505–524.
53.
VoetenE (2007)
The politics of international judicial appointments: Evidence from the European court of human rights. International Organization61(04): 669–701.
54.
VoetenE (2008)
The impartiality of international judges: Evidence from the European court of human rights. The American Political Science Review102(4): 417–433.
55.
VolkensA (2007)
Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to measuring policy positions of parties. Electoral Studies26(1): 108–120.
56.
WaldfogelJ (1995)
The selection hypothesis and the relationship between trial and plaintiff victory. Journal of Political Economy103(2): 229–260.
57.
WeidenDL (2011)
Judicial politicization, ideology, and activism at the high courts of the United States, Canada, and Australia. Political Research Quarterly64(2): 335–347.
58.
ZhangAHLiuJGaroupaN (2018)
Judging in Europe: Do legal traditions matter?Journal of Competition Law & Economics14(1): 144–178.
59.
ZimmerCSchneiderGDobbinsM (2005)
The contested council: Conflict dimensions of an intergovernmental EU institution. Political Studies53(2): 403–422.
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.
