An Ever More Powerful Court?: The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union
ISBN: 9780191815027
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Oxford University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Constitutional and Administrative Law EU Law;

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.


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.

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