An Ever More Powerful Court?

The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen

Oxford Studies in European Law

Provides original data on the interaction between judicial and legislative politics from 1957 to 2014
Offers a careful theoretical and empirical examination of how the EU legislative process can influence and interact with CJEU decisions
Delivers new insights into the dynamics of law and politics in the European Union through its contemporary institutional and political setting
Develops new methods for examining judicial influence on legislative outputs, inviting scholars to apply the 'law attainment' approach in order to qualify research on the relationship between legal and political integration

Winner of the EUSA Best Book Award 2015-2016

An Ever More Powerful Court?

The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen

Oxford Studies in European Law

Description

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has become famed - and often shamed - for its political power. In scholarly literature, this supranational court has been regarded as a 'master of integration' for its capacity to strengthen integration, sometimes against the will of member states. In the public debate, the CJEU has been severely criticized for extending EU competences at the expense of the member states. In An Ever More Powerful Court? The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union, Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen challenges these views with her careful examination of how judicial-legislative interactions determine the scope and limits of European integration in the daily EU decision-making process.

Methodologically, the book takes a step forward in the examination of judicial influence, suggesting a 'law attainment' approach as a novel method, combined with a large set of interviews with the current decision-makers of social Europe. Through a study of social policy developments from 1957 to 2014, as well as a critical analysis of three case studies - EU regulation of working time; patients' rights in cross-border healthcare; and EU posting of worker regulations - Martinsen reveals the dynamics behind legal and political integration and the CJEU's ability to foster political change for a European Union social policy.

Winner of the EUSA Best Book Award 2015-2016

An Ever More Powerful Court?

The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen

Oxford Studies in European Law

1: Introduction
2: The Court of Justice of the European Union: Master of Integration?
3: A Social Policy for the European Union
4: Battles on Working Time: Rejecting Court Influence
5: Patients' Rights in Cross-Border Healthcare: Modifying Judicial Influence
6: Regulating the Posting of Workers: Rejecting and Modifying Court Influence
7: Conclusion
Annex 1: Judicial Influence on Policy Outputs over Time
Annex 2: Major Commission Proposals Social and Healthcare Policies 1957-2014
Annex 3: From Proposal to Final Adopted Act
Annex 4: Adding to Annex IIa Over the Years

Winner of the EUSA Best Book Award 2015-2016

An Ever More Powerful Court?

The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen

Oxford Studies in European Law

Author Information

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen is a professor at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science. Her research focuses on EU welfare policies, investigating in particular the interaction between law and politics in European integration and Europeanisation. Her work has appeared in journals such as Public Administration, American Review of Public Administration, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics and European Union Politics.

Winner of the EUSA Best Book Award 2015-2016

An Ever More Powerful Court?

The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen

Oxford Studies in European Law

Reviews and Awards

"Dorte Martinsen's book is a must-read for political scientists and lawyers alike, if they want to understand how sociological and institutional factors, in short the 'politics of law', frame the European political and social system in a legal field that is anything but unified." - Sabine Saurugger, West European Politics

"Empirically rich and analytically clear and innovative, Martinsen's book speaks to various contemporary literatures on the EU." - Maurizio Ferrera, Journal of European Social Policy

"Another book on the European Court of Justice? Another exploration of the interaction between law and politics, the Court and the political Institutions in the European Union? Yes, and a remarkable book at that. The great strength of this book is its empirical dimension, its subject matter specificity, and its institutional specificity in examining the relationship between the jurisprudence of the Court and the political branches of the Union. Make no mistake, the research is firmly situated in a conceptual and theoretical foundation, but the main achievement is in the differentiated results of the empirical exploration, which lead to a final nuanced and sophisticated new understanding of the relationship." - Joseph Weiler, European Journal of International Law

"This excellent book provides a convincing corrective to the apolitical accounts of judicial supremacy that have dominated debates about European legal integration and the power of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Advancing the novel theoretical insight that the EU legislative process makes both codifying and overruling the Court equally difficult, its detailed process tracing of a highly salient domain demonstrates how political and judicial institutions interact to produce particular social policies." - Lisa Conant, University of Denver

"This book is an outstanding piece of work. It intervenes in the scholarly controversy between the 'dynamic view' and the 'constrained view' of Court activism and political judicialization, and while taking side with the latter, it offers an original and persuasive re-specification of such view which forwards the frontiers of analysis and debate." - Maurizio Ferrera, University of Milan

"This book has the potential of becoming a landmark in European policy research. By focusing on the interaction between the Court and political legislation it goes far beyond the conventional opposition of legal vs. political, technocratic vs. interest-driven, or supranational vs. intergovernmental approaches in accounting for the true complexity and contingency of European social integration." - Fritz W. Scharpf, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne

"This monograph not only manages to add data to a well-established field of research, but is a major contribution to our understanding of the issues involved in the highly relevant field of EU social policy - one of the largest sources of cases coming before the Court of Justice of the European Union. This will remain a book of great importance, also given how contentious trans-border social policy is likely to remain in the EU. In addition to being supported by an exemplary research design, it offers a theoretical development that will inspire other research. Given the contribution to the development of the theory, this book is a must-read for academics in political science and European studies as well as practitioners involved in EU policymaking." - Federica Bicchi, Nanette Neuwahl, Waltraud Schelkle, EUSA Review of Books