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PROPOSAL TITLE: Unmasking the ECJ: National Governemnts, Appointment, and Strategic Justices

PAPER ABSTRACT: Rulings of the European Court of Justice have profoundly affected member states, national governments, and European citizens. The court by some accounts has seized power and overstepped its bounds, or by others, duly done its delegated duty. Almost always “the Court” is treated as an agent of the member-state principals. I argue that member states view not the full Court, but their individual appointed justice, as their agent – despite the court's mask of formalism and the secrecy afforded by its en banc decisions. I show that governments use their power of appointment as a measure of control over the ECJ. I propose a dynamic measure of justices’ preferences that exploits the fact that while justice-votes are unobserved, the organization of the court into panels (subsets) systematically reveals information about individual voting behavior. I show that justices are re-appointed or replaced as functions of information available to the national governments who appoint them. Finally, I explore the role that member state “observations” (briefs submitted to the court) play in justices' decisionmaking, and in terms of what national governments learn from tendering observations and then seeing the court’s ruling.

Submitted to the following divisions:
Div 14 Div. 14 - Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies
Div 11 Div. 11 - Comparative Politics