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Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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The European Court of Justice has been the dark horse of European integration, quietly transforming the Treaty of Rome into a European Community (EC) constitution and steadily increasing the impact and scope of EC law. While legal scholars have tended to take the Court's power for granted, political scientists have overlooked it entirely. This article develops a first-stage theory of community law and politics that marries the insights of legal scholars with a theoretical framework developed by political scientists. Neofunctionalism, the theory that dominated regional integration studies in the 1960s, offers a set of independent variables that convincingly and parsimoniously explain the process of legal integration in the EC. Just as neofunctionalism predicts, the principal forces behind that process are supranational and subnational actors pursuing their own self-interests within a politically insulated sphere. Its distinctive features include a widening of the ambit of successive legal decisions according to a functional logic, a gradual shift in the expectations of both government institutions and private actors participating in the legal system, and the strategic subordination of immediate individual interests of member states to postulated collective interests over the long term. Law functions as a mask for politics, precisely the role neofunctionalists originally forecast for economics. Paradoxically, however, the success of legal institutions in performing that function rests on their self-conscious preservation of the autonomy of law.

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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1993

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References

1. The reference is to the title of Haas's magisterial study of early integration efforts focused on the European Coal and Steel Community. See Ernst Haas, B., The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

2. See, for example, Robert Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann, , “Conclusions: Community Politics and Institutional Change,” in Wallace, William, ed., The Dynamics of European Integration (London: Pinter, 1990), pp. 280–81.Google Scholar

3. The definitive account of the “constitutionalization” of the treaty is an article by Stein, Eric, “Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution,” American Journal of International Law 75 (01 1981), pp. 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a more recent account from an ECJ judge, see Mancini, G. Federico, “The Making of a Constitution for Europe,” Common Market Law Review, vol. 26, 1989, pp. 595614.Google Scholar

4. This apparent indifference to larger political questions has been so profound as to earn reproach even from a member of the ECJ itself. Judge Ulrich Everling offered his own account of the relationship between the Court and the member states in 1984, beginning, “The central problem of the European Community is the tension which exists between it and its Member States.” He further observed in a footnote that “this problem is largely ignored and underestimated in the legal literature.” See Ulrich Everling, The Member States of the European Community Before Their Court of Justice,” European Law Review, vol. 9, 1984, p. 215.Google Scholar See also Everling's works “Das Europäische Gemeinschaftsrecht im Spannungsfeld von Politik and Wirtschaft” (EC law in tension between politics and economics), in Grewe, Wilhelm G., Rupp, Hans, and Schneider, Hans, eds., Europäische Gerichtsbarkeit und nationale Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Hans Kutscher (European jurisdiction and national constitutional jurisdiction: Festschrift on the 70th birthday of Hans Kutscher) (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1981), pp. 155–87Google Scholar; and “Europäische Politik durch Europäisches Recht?” (European politics through European law?), EG–Magazin, 01 1984, pp. 35.Google Scholar

5. A noteworthy exception is Scheingold, Stuart, The Rule of Law in European Integration (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965).Google Scholar Other early works on the Court will be discussed below.

6. The one major exception, discussed below, is Garrett, Geoffrey, “International Cooperation and Institutional Choice: The European Community's Internal Market,” International Organization 46 (Spring 1992), pp. 533–60.Google Scholar See also Geoffrey Garrett and Barry Weingast, “Ideas, Interests and Institutions: Constructing the EC's Internal Market,” manuscript, Dept. of Political Science, Duke University, Durham, N.C., 1992.

7. After reviewing the events of the late 1980s and the new flurry of interest in the literature, Keohane and Hoffmann resurrected neofunctionalism and restored it to the agenda of EC research, reminding their readers of its more sophisticated aspects. See Keohane and Hoffmann, “Conclusions,” p. 286 ff. In the same article, drawing on the work of Joseph Weiler and Renaud Dehousse, Keohane and Hoffmann also acknowledge that the “Community legal process has a dynamic of its own,” (p. 278). They fail to put these two insights together, however. An argument that neofunctionalists mistakenly overlooked the ECJ is found in Philippe Schmitter, C., “Interests, Powers and Functions: Emergent Properties and Unintended Consequences in the European Polity,” in Lange, Peter and Marks, Gary, eds., The Future European PolityGoogle Scholar, forthcoming.

8. A quantitative illustration of the growing importance of community law is the number of cases referred to the ECJ by domestic courts. The number jumped from a low of nine in 1968 to a high of 119 in 1978.

9. Legal integration does not necessarily need to take place within the framework of supranational institutions, although that is our focus here. For a noninstitutional analysis of the dynamics of legal integration among liberal states, see Anne-Marie Burley, “Liberal States: A Zone of Law,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 3–6 September 1992.

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14. Writers in this tradition point frequently to Article 4 of the Rome treaty, which lists the court as one of the institutions to carry out the tasks entrusted to the community by member states who, according to the treaty's preamble, are “determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the people of Europe.” See Treaties Establishing the European Communities (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1987).Google Scholar

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19. ibid., p. 291.

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21. Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice, p. 3.Google Scholar

22. ibid., p. 8.

23. ibid., p. 12.

24. ibid., p. 13.

25. Lenaerts, Koen, “The Role of the Court of Justice in the European Community: Some Thoughts About the Interaction Between Judges and Politicians,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1992Google Scholar, forthcoming.

26. ibid., p. 35.

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33. ibid., p. 3, emphasis added.

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38. ibid., p. 557.

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41. ibid., p. 13.

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44. ibid., p. 559.

45. See discussion below.

46. For a compelling overview of the evidence, see Stein, , “Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution,” p. 25.Google Scholar

47. See discussion of the Sheepmeat cases below.

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49. Andrew Moravcsik also has pointed out this parallel. See ibid., p. 24, n. 17. Ironically, the authors themselves explicitly disavow the usefulness of neofunctionalism to the understanding of Europe 1992; see Sandholtz, Wayne and Zysman, John, “1992: Recasting the European Bargain,” World Politics 42 (10 1989), pp. 95128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. See Sandholtz, Wayne, “Choosing Union: Monetary Politics and Maastricht,” this issue of International Organization.Google Scholar

51. See Haas, The Uniting of Europe.

52. See in particular the following works by Haas, Ernst: “International Integration: The European and the Universal Process,” International Organization 15 (Summer 1961), pp. 366–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; “Technocracy, Pluralism, and the New Europe,” in Stephen Graubard, ed., A New Europe? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964)Google Scholar reprinted in Nye, Joseph, International Regionalism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), pp. 149–79Google Scholar (our citations refer to this latter version); and The Study of Regional Integration: Reflection on the Joy and Anguish of Pretheorizing,” International Organization 24 (Autumn 1970), pp. 607–46.Google Scholar See also Ernst Haas, B. and Schmitter, Phillipe, “Economic and Differential Patterns of Political Integration: Projections About Unity in Latin America,” International Organization 18 (Autumn 1964), pp. 705–37.Google Scholar

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56. ibid., p. 78.

57. We borrow this expression from Reginald Harrison, , Europe in Question: Theories of Regional International Integration (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 80.Google Scholar

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61. Haas, , The Uniting of Europe, p. xivGoogle Scholar, emphasis added.

62. Note that the idea of spillover is not new. There are numerous variations on the theme. Claude notes that writing before World War I, Paul S. Reinsch adumbrated a “concentric circles” concept of International Organization, according to which the idea of multilateral attack upon world problems will function like a pebble dropped into the international pond, giving rise to a series of circles of cooperation which will expand from a limited area of technical agencies to vast circumference of a global political and security organization (Public International Union, Boston, Ginn, 1911).Google Scholar Paul Hoffman has suggested that “the good thing about the spirit of unity is that it ramifies out; when you cultivate habits of unity in the economic sphere, they naturally spread over to the political sphere and even to the military sphere when the need arises.” (Peace Can Be Won, New York, Doubleday, 1951, p. 62).Google Scholar See Claude, Inis L., Swords into Plow Shares, 4th ed. (New York: Random House, 1971, p. 384).Google Scholar

63. Lindberg, Leon, The Political Dynamics of the European Economic Integration (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 10.Google Scholar We follow George's suggestion of strictly distinguishing those two types of spillover. See George, Stephen, Politics and Policy in the European Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 1636.Google Scholar George also offers a compelling illustration of functional spillover. He argues that the removal of tariff barriers will not in itself create a common market. The fixing of exchange rates also is required in order to achieve that end. But, the surrender of control over national exchange rates demands the establishment of some sort of monetary union, which, in turn, will not be workable without the adoption of central macroeconomic policy coordination and which itself requires the development of a common regional policy, and so forth (pp. 21–22).

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67. “The European executives [are] able to construct patterns of mutual concessions from various policy contexts and in so doing usually manage to upgrade [their] own powers at the expense of the member governments.” Haas, “Technocracy, Pluralism, and the New Europe,” p. 152.

68. ibid.

69. Mitrany, David, A Working Peace (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1966), p. 99.Google Scholar Besides Mitrany's work, see also Sewell, James Patrick, Functionalism and World Politics, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haas, Ernst, Beyond the Nation-State, especially chaps. 14Google Scholar; and Claude, , Swords into Plowshares, especially chap. 17.Google Scholar

70. Haas, , “Technocracy, Pluralism, and the New Europe,” p. 152, emphasis added.Google Scholar

71. Haas, , “International Integration,” p. 102.Google Scholar

72. ibid., p. 372.

73. Nye, Joseph, “Patterns and Catalysts in Regional Integration,” International Organization 19 (Autumn 1965), pp. 870–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74. See Hoffmann, Stanley, “Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation–State and the Case of Western Europe,” Daedalus 95 (Summer 1966), pp. 862915Google Scholar; Hoffmann, Stanley, “Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Area as a Partial System,” reprinted in Wilcox, Francis and Haviland, Henry Field, eds., The Atlantic Community: Progress and Prospects (New York: Praeger, 1963).Google Scholar

75. Haas, Ernst B., The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).Google Scholar See also Haas, Ernst B., “Turbulent Fields and the Theory of Regional Integration,” International Organization 30 (Spring 1976), pp. 173212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76. Haas and Schmitter, “Economic and Differential Patterns of Political Integration,” p. 710.

77. For a cross-section of the résumés of both judges and advocates general, see Brown, L. Neville and Jacobs, Francis, The Court of Justice of the European Communities (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1977), pp. 3348.Google Scholar

78. It may seem odd to characterize lower national courts as subnational actors, but as discussed below, much of the Court's success in creating a unified and enforceable community legal system has rested on convincing lower national courts to leapfrog the national judicial hierarchy and work directly with the ECJ. See Volcansek, Mary L., Judicial Politics in Europe (New York: Peter Lang, 1986), pp. 245–67Google Scholar; and Usher, John, European Community Law and National Law (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981).Google Scholar

79. Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice, p. 245.Google Scholar

80. The Court's rules allow member states to intervene to state their position in any case they deem important, but this provision is regularly underutilized.

81. See Brown, and Jacobs, , The Coud of Justice of the European Communities, pp. 180–81.Google Scholar

82. Schermers, Henry, “Special Foreward,” Common Market Law Review, no. 27, 1990, pp. 637–38.Google Scholar

83. Prominent examples include The Common Market Law Review, The European Law Review, Yearbook of European Law, Legal Issues of European Integration, Cahier de Droit Européen, Revue trimestrielle de Droit Européen, and Europarecht. A vast number of American international and comparative law journals also publish regular articles on European law.

84. See Case 25/62, Plaumann & Co. v. Commission of the European Economic Community, European Court Reports (ECR), 1963, p. 95.Google Scholar See also Rasmussen, Hjalte, “Why is Article 173 Interpreted Against Private Plaintiffs?European Law Review, no. 5, 1980, pp. 112–27.Google Scholar

85. Case 26/62, N.V. Algemene Transport & Expeditie Ondememing Van Gend & Loos v. Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen, ECR, 1963, p. 1.Google Scholar

86. ibid., p. 12, emphasis added.

87. See Stein, , Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution.Google Scholar

88. Case 57/65, Alfons Lütticke GmbH v. Hauptzollamt Saarlouis, ECR, 1986, p. 205.Google Scholar

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93. Van Duyn, p. 1342.

94. ibid., p. 1348. For a discussion of more recent cases in which the Court explicitly has carved out individual rights in the enforcement of community directives, see Curtin, Deirdre, “Directives: The Effectiveness of Judicial Protection of Individual Rights,” Common Market Law Review, vol. 27, 1990, pp. 709–39.Google Scholar

95. Mancini describes this process in great detail; see Mancini, , “The Making of a Constitution for Europe,” pp. 605–6.Google Scholar See also Pescatore, , The Law of Integration, p. 99Google Scholar; and Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice, p. 247.Google Scholar

96. More prosaically, but no less effectively for the construction of a community legal system, the Article 177 procedure offers “clever lawyers and tacticians … the possibility of using Community law to mount challenges to traditional local economic restrictions in a way which may keep open a window of trading opportunity whilst the legal process grinds away.” In a word, delay. See Gormley, L., “Recent Case Law on the Free Movement of Goods: Some Hot Potatoes,” Common Market Law Review, vol. 27, 1990, pp. 825–57.Google Scholar

97. Haas, , Beyond the Nation–State, p. 128.Google Scholar

98. Rasmussen describes a “generous information campaign,” as a result of which a steadily increasing number of national judges traveled to the Palais de Justice, at the ECJ's expense, for conferences about the court and the nature of the Article 177 procedure. See Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice, p. 247.Google Scholar

99. Mancini, , “The Making of a Constitution for Europe,” p. 605.Google Scholar In this regard, Mary Volcansek offers an interesting discussion of the various “follow–up mechanisms” the ECJ employed to further an ongoing partnership with the national courts, including positive feedback whenever possible and gradual accommodation of the desire occasionally to interpret community law for themselves. See Volcansek, , Judicial Politics in Europe, pp. 264–66.Google Scholar

100. Shapiro, Martin, “The European Court of Justice,” in Sbragia, Alberta M., ed., Euro-politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the New European Community (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), p. 127.Google Scholar

101. Weiler, , “The Transformation of Europe,” p. 2426.Google Scholar

102. ibid. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that lower national courts who refer questions to the ECJ save themselves the work of deciding the case themselves and simultaneously protect against the chance of reversal.

103. Van Gend & Loos, p. 22.

104. See, e.g., Lütticke, p. 10, where the ECJ announced that the direct effect of the treaty article in question depends solely on a finding by the national court; see also Case 33/76 Rewe–Zentralfinanz Gesellschaft and Rewe-Zentral AG v. Landwirtschaftskammer fur das Saarland, ECR, 1989, p. 1998Google Scholar; and Case 45/76 Comet BV v. Produktschap voor Siergewassen, , ECR, 1976, pp. 2052–53.Google Scholar

105. Case 106/77, Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v. Simmenthal S.p.A. [1978] ECR 629.Google Scholar

106. ibid., p.643.

107. Riasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court of Justice, p. 245.Google Scholar

108. See Lenaerts, Koenrad, “The Role of the Court of Justice in the European Community: Some Thoughts About the Interaction Between Judges and Politicians,” University of Chicago Legal ForumGoogle Scholar, forthcoming.

109. For a number of specific examples, see Evening, “The Court of Justice as a Decisionmaking Authority,” pp. 12991301.Google Scholar

110. The “Jean Monnet Action,” a program of the European Commission, has recently created fifty–seven new full-time teaching posts in community law as part of a massive program to create new courses in European integration.

111. Pescatore, , The Law of Integration, pp. 8990.Google Scholar

112. ibid., p. 87, emphasis added.

113. Mancini, , “The Making of a Constitution for Europe,” p. 600.Google Scholar

114. ibid.

115. ibid., p. 601.

116. This is the way Joseph Weiler describes the supremacy cases, again tacitly emphasizing a necessary logical progression. See Weiler, “The Transformation of Europe,” p. 2414.

117. Nugent, Neil, The Government and Politics of the European Community (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989), p. 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

118. See Council Directive on Voting Rights for Community Nationals in Local Elections in Their Member States of Residence,” Official Journal, 1988, C256/4Google Scholar, and Amended Proposal, Official Journal, 1989, C290/4.

119. For further reading, see Leleux, Paul, “The Role of the European Court of Justice in Protecting Individual Rights in the Context of Free Movement of Persons and Services,” in Eric Stein and Terrence Sandalow, eds., Courts and Free Markets, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 363427.Google Scholar

120. Schermers, Henry, “The Role of the European Court of Justice in the Free Movement of Goods,” in Eric Stein and Terrence Sandalow, eds., Courts and Free Markets, vol. 1, pp. 222–71.Google Scholar

121. See Haas, , “International Integration,” p. 366Google Scholar; and Haas, , The Uniting of Europe, p. 12.22Google Scholar

122. Weiler, , “The Transformation of Europe,” p. 2425.Google Scholar

123. Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court ofJustice, pp. 275–81.Google Scholar

124. As is now widely recognized, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all filed briefs strongly objecting to the notion of direct effect in Van Gend & Loos. None subsequently suggested revisiting that decision.

125. The first of these cases was Case 48/74, Mr. Charmasson v. Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance, ECR, p. 1383, involving a suit by a French banana importer challenging import restrictions imposed by the French banana market organization; the second was the Potato case, Case 231/78, Commission v. UK, ECR, 1979, p. 1447, an action by the commission against Britain for the activities of its potato market organization in which the French government supported the British position against the interests of its own potato exporters. The final installment in this saga was a challenge by the commission against the French again, this time for restrictions on sheepmeat from Britain. See Case 232/78, Commission v. France, ECR, 1979, p. 2729.

126. For a more detailed account of the arguments of the various parties in these cases, see Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court ofJustice, pp. 281–84 and 338–45.Google Scholar

127. Case 22/70, Commission of the European Communities v. Council of the European Communities, ECR, 1971, p. 363.Google Scholar

128. Pescatore, , The Law of Integration, p. 88.Google Scholar

129. ibid., p. 89.

130. See, for example, Shapiro, Martin, “The Constitution and Economic Rights,” in Harmon, M. Judd, ed., Essays on the Constitution of the United States (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1978), pp. 7498.Google Scholar

131. See Dumon, F., “La jurisprudence de la Cour de Justice. Examen critique des methodes d'interpretation” (The jurisprudence of the ECJ. Critical study of methods of interpretation) (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1976), pp. 5153Google Scholar; Green, A.W., Political Integration by Jurisprudence (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1969), pp. 2633 and 498Google Scholar; Mann, Clarence, The Function of Judicial Decision in European Economic Integration (The Hague: Martinus Nihjoff, 1972), pp. 508–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scheingold, , The Rule of Law in European Integration, pp. 263–85Google Scholar; and Stein, “Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution, passim.

132. For a discussion of “the oral tradition” of criticism that European scholars refuse publicly to acknowledge, see Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Court ofJustice, pp. 147–48 and 152–54.Google Scholar

133. Shapiro, , “Comparative Law and Comparative Politics,” p. 542.Google Scholar

134. Pescatore, , The Law of Integration, p. 89.Google Scholar

135. Van Gend & Loos.

136. Mancini, , “The Making of a Constitution,” p. 606.Google Scholar

137. ibid., pp. 612–14.

138. The classic study documenting this proposition is Eric Stein, “Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution,” p. 25. Out of ten landmark cases, Stein found only two in which the Court had diverged from the Commission.

139. Pescatore, , The Law of Integration, p. 80.Google Scholar

140. ibid., pp. 80–82.

141. ibid., p. 82.

142. See Rasmussen, , On Law and Policy in the European Coun ofJustice, pp. 238–40.Google Scholar

143. The most notable proponents of this approach to American judicial politics were Justice Felix Frankfurter and his intellectual protégé Alexander Bickel. See Bickel, Alexander, The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).Google Scholar

144. Mancini, , “The Making of a Constitution for Europe,” p. 605Google Scholar, emphasis original.

145. Treaty on European Union, Articles 126129 (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1992).Google Scholar

146. We are indebted to Joseph Weiler for this reading of the Maastricht Treaty.

147. Treaty on European Union, Article 143.

148. For a discussion of the distinctive characteristics of reflectivism, see Keohane, “Two Views of Institutions,” pp. 389–93. See also Kratochwil, Friedrich and Ruggie, John Gerard, “International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art of the State,” International Organization 40 (Autumn 1986), pp. 753–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kratochwil, Friedrich V., Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ruggie, John Gerard, “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” World Politics 35 (1983), pp. 261–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wendt, Alexander, “Anarchy is What States Make of It,” International Organization 46 (1992), pp. 391426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

149. See Stone, Alec, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Stone, Alec, “Judging Socialism: Constitutional Politics in France and Germany,” Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming.Google Scholar

150. Shapiro, , “Comparative Law and Comparative Politics,” pp. 540–42.Google Scholar

151. It should be noted here that Volcansek has integrated similar arguments into a more comprehensive political theory about the impact of ECJ judgments on national courts, arguing for the importance of “legitimacy and efficacy” as one of four factors determining the nature of that impact. See Volcansek, , Judicial Politics in Europe, pp. 267–70.Google Scholar

152. Weiler, , “The Transformation of Europe,” p. 2428.Google Scholar