Clifford J. Carrubba (Department of Political Science, Emory University) Matthew Gabel () (Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky)
Abstract
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is commonly described as a powerful international force for legal integration. Indeed, past studies indicate that the ECJ has developed a supranational legal order that trumps national law in a broad range of economic policy areas. But this depiction of an autonomous Court driving European integration beyond the desires of the member-states is dubious. We would expect the Court, whose existence depends on an international treaty and whose authority depends on national enforcement, to have strong incentives to decide cases with an eye to concerns of national governments. We argue that past studies -- which were based on a small number of case studies -- cannot demonstrate whether the Court is or is not sensitive to member-state interests. Based on novel dataset of all ECJ decisions over three years, we develop an empirical test of member-state influence on ECJ decisions and demonstrate that the Court does temper its decisions to accommodate member-state concerns.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations in its series Working Papers with number
2005-06.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (David E. Wildasin).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Robin Boadway & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2005.
"A Theory of Vertical Fiscal Imbalance,"
Working Papers
2006-04, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions: