Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:07:51.646Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Legitimacy of the Court of Justice in the European Union: Models of Institutional Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1995

Gregory A. Caldeira
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
James L. Gibson
Affiliation:
University of Houston

Abstract

Using a survey of mass publics, we investigate the political legitimacy of the Court of Justice of the European Communities. To what degree does the Court have the visibility and diffuse support necessary for legitimacy? What accounts for variability in support for the Court? Are theories developed largely in the American context generalizable in Western Europe to a transnational legal institution? Do the sources of the Court's legitimacy vary across nations, and how? Our analysis indicates that relatively obscure institutions such as the Court of Justice are unlikely to build support through satisfying their constituencies' demands. Without information about the Court of Justice, ordinary citizens form their views based on its connection with the European Union and its association with broad political and legal values. As the Court moves into the limelight of European law and politics, the decisions the judges make may increasingly shape citizens' perceptions of its legitimacy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamany, David, and Grossman, Joel. 1983. “Support for the Supreme Court as a National Policymaker.” Law and Policy Quarterly 5:405–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnull, Anthony M. 1991. “What Shall We Do on Sunday?European Law Review 16:112–24.Google Scholar
Bermann, George. 1989. “The Single Europe Act: A New Constitution for the Community?Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 27:529–87.Google Scholar
Boyce, Brigitte. 1993. “The Democratic Deficit of the European Community.” Parliamentary Affairs 46:458–77.Google Scholar
Brown, L. Neville. 1989. The Court of Justice of the European Communities. 3d ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell.Google Scholar
Burley, Anne Marie, and Mattli, Walter. 1993. “Europe before the Court.” International Organization 47:4176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A. 1990. “Courts and Public Opinion.” In The American Courts, ed. Gates, John B. and Johnson, Charles A.. Washington: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A., and Gibson, James L.. 1992. “The Etiology of Public Support for the Supreme Court.” American Journal of Political Science 36:635–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelletti, Mauro. 1987. “Is the European Court of Justice Running Wild?European Law Review 12:317.Google Scholar
Cappelletti, Mauro. 1989. The Judicial Process in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Cappelletti, Mauro, and Golay, David. 1986. “The Judicial Branch in the Federal and Transnational Union: Its Impact on Integration.” In Integration through Law, vol. 1, ed. Cappelletti, Mauro, Seccombe, Monica, and Weiler, Joseph. New York: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corwin, Edward S. 1936. “The Constitution as Instrument and as Symbol.” American Political Science Review 30:1071–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1965. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Easton, David. 1975. “A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support.” British Journal of Political Science 5:435–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Featherstone, Kevin 1994. “Jean Monnet and the ‘Democratic Deficit’ in the European Union.” Journal of Common Market Studies 32:149–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frowein, Jochen A., Schulholfer, Stephen, and Shapiro, Martin. 1986. “The Protection of Fundamental Human Rights as a Vehicle of Integration.” In Integration through Law, vol. 1, ed. Cappelletti, Mauro, Seccombe, Monica, and Weiler, Joseph. New York: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gabel, Matthew J. 1994. “Understanding the Public Constraint on European Integration: Affective Sentiments, Utilitarian Evaluations, and Public Support for European Integration.” Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1989. “Understandings of Justice: Institutional Legitimacy, Procedural Justice, and Political Tolerance.” Law and Society Review 23:469–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1991. “Institutional Legitimacy, Procedural Justice, and Compliance with Supreme Court Decisions: A Question of Causality.” Law and Society Review 25:631–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 1992. “Blacks and the Supreme Court: Models of Diffuse Support.” Journal of Politics 52:1120–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 1995. “The Legitimacy of Transnational Legal Institutions: Compliance, Support, and the European Court of Justice.” American Journal of Political Science 39:459489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girvin, Brian. 1994. “Moral Politics and the Irish Abortion Referendums 1992.” Parliamentary Affairs 47:203–21.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Walter. 1992. “Europe after Maastricht.” Foreign Affairs 72(4):117–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, William H. 1993. Econometric Analysis. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hartley, Trevor C. 1986. “Federalism, Courts, and Legal Systems: The Emerging Constitution of the European Community.” American Journal of Comparative Law 34:229–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Janssen, Joseph I. H. 1991. “Postmaterialism, Cognitive Mobilization, and Public Support for European Integration.” British Journal of Political Science 21:443–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary. 1989. Unifying Political Metholodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Koopmans, T. 1986. “The Role of Law in the Next Stage of European Integration.” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 34:925–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosaki, Liane C., and Franklin, Charles H.. 1991. “Public Awareness of Supreme Court Decisions.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Krislov, Samuel, Ehlermann, Claus-Dieter, and Weiler, Joseph. 1986. “The Political Organs and the Decision-making Process in the United States and the European Community.” In Integration through Law, vol. 1, ed. Cappelletti, Mauro, Seccombe, Monica, and Weiler, Joseph. New York: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kuechler, Manfred. 1991. “The Dynamics of Mass Political Support in Western Europe: Methodological Problems and Preliminary Findings.” In Eurobarometer: The Dynamics of European Public Opinion, ed. Reif, Karlheinz and Inglehart, Ronald. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Lange, Peter. 1992. “The Politics of the Social Dimension.” In Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the “New” European Community, ed. Sbragia, Alberta M.. Washington: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Lasok, D., and Bridge, J. W.. 1991. Law and Institutions of the European Communities. 5th ed. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Lenaerts, Koen. 1990. “Constitutionalism and the Many Faces of Federalism.” American journal of Comparative Law 38:205–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. 1988. Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl. 1934. “The Constitution as an Institution.” Columbia Law Review 34:140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenberg, Gerhard. 1971. “The Influence of Parliamentary Behavior on Regime Stability.” Comparative Politics 3:177200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClosky, Herbert, and Zaller, John. 1984. The American Ethos: Public Attitudes toward Capitalism and Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B., Erikson, Robert S., and Stimson, James A.. 1992. “Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U. S. Economy.” American Political Science Review 86:597611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddala, G. S. 1983. Limited-dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mancini, Federico. 1989. “The Making of a Constitution for Europe.” Common Market Law Review 26:595614.Google Scholar
Murphy, Walter F., and Tanenhaus, Joseph. 1968. “Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court: A Preliminary Mapping of Some Prerequisites for Court Legitimation of Regime Changes.” Law and Society Review 2:357–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Walter F., and Tanenhaus, Joseph. 1990. “Publicity, Public Opinion, and the Court.” Northwestern University Law Review 84:9851023.Google Scholar
Murphy, Walter F., Tanenhaus, Joseph, and Kastner, Daniel. 1973. Public Evaluations of Constitutional Courts: Alternative Explanations. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Niedermayer, Oskar. 1991. “Public Opinion about the European Parliament.” In Eurobarometer: Dynamics of European Public Opinion, ed. Reif, Karlheinz and Inglehart, Ronald. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Patterson, Samuel C., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 1990. “Standing Up for Congress: Variations in Public Esteem since the 1960s.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 15:2547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, Samuel C., Hedlund, Ronald, and Boynton, G. R.. 1975. Representatives and Represented: Bases of Public Support for the American Legislatures. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Hjalte. 1986. On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice: A Comparative Study in Judicial Policymaking. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Hjalte. 1988. “Between Self-Restraint and Activism: A Judicial Policy for the European Court.” European Law Review 13:2838.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart. 1975. The Politics of Rights. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Schermers, Henry G. 1990. “The Scales in Balance: National Constitutional Court Versus Court of Justice.” Common Market Law Review 27:97105.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin. 1992. “The European Court of Justice.” In Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the “New” European Community, ed. Sbragia, Alberta M.. Washington: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin, and Stone, Alec. 1994. “The New Constitutional Politics of Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 26:397421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Dale L., and Wanke, Jurgen. 1993. “Completing the Single European Market: An Analysis of the Impact on the Member States.” American Journal of Political Science 37:529–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, Charles, Glather, Jill, and Lodge, Milton G.. 1994. “The Motivated Construction of Political Judgments.” State University of New York, Stony Brook. Typescript.Google Scholar
Tate, C. Neal. 1987. “Judicial Institutions in Cross-national Perspective: Toward Integrating Courts into the Comparative Study of Politics.” In Comparative Judicial Systems, ed. Schmidhauser, John R.. London: Butterworth's.Google Scholar
Tate, C. Neal, and Vallinder, Torbjorn, eds. 1994. The Global Expansion of Judicial Power. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Mitchell, Gregory. 1994. “Legitimacy and the Empowerment of Discretionary Legal Authority: The United States Supreme Court and Abortion Rights.” Duke Law Journal 43:703815.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Volcansek, Mary L. 1992. “The European Court of Justice: Supranational Policymaking.” West European Politics 15:109–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1986. “Eurocracy and Distrust: Some Questions Concerning the Role of the European Court of Justice in the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights within the Legal Order of the European Communities.” Washington Law Review 1103–42.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1991. “The Transformation of Europe.” Yale Law Journal 100:2403–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1992. “After Maastricht: Community Legitimacy in post-1992 Europe.” In Singular Europe, ed. Adams, William James. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1994. “A Quiet Revolution: The European Court of Justice and Its Interlocutors.” Comparative Political Studies 26:510–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.