This article analyzes how the judicial politics sparked by the European Union's (EU) legal development have evolved over time. Existing studies have traced how lower national courts began cooperating with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to apply EU law because this empowered them to challenge government policies and the decisions of their domestic judicial superiors. We argue that the institutional dynamics identified by this ‘judicial empowerment thesis’ proved self‐eroding over time, incentivizing domestic high courts to reassert control over national judicial hierarchies and to influence the development EU law in ways that were also encouraged by the ECJ. We support our argument by combining an analysis of a dataset of cases referred to the ECJ with comparative case study and interview evidence. We conclude that while these evolving judicial politics signal the institutional maturation of the EU legal order, they also risk weakening the decentralized enforcement of European law.
This content will become publicly available on June 20, 2024
Given their place within the judicial hierarchy, judges on lower courts face a complex array of challenges including heavy caseloads, mandatory dockets, and the threat of Supreme Court reversal. Despite the extensive scholarship on the American courts, little is known about judicial interactions in comparative contexts. We articulate and evaluate a framework for lower court adherence to Supreme Court precedents by leveraging a cross-national design in three countries—Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States—with similar systems but meaningful institutional variability. We find that the mechanisms promulgating adherence to Supreme Court precedents do not substantially vary across design or institutional context. Instead, our results demonstrate that legal factors exert a consistent, homogeneous effect on lower court compliance across judicial systems. Our work offers new and important implications for studies on law and courts and comparative institutions, more broadly.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1921268
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10424587
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Political Research Quarterly
- Volume:
- 76
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1065-9129
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1906-1919
- Size(s):
- ["p. 1906-1919"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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