Researching the European Court of Justice
Methodological Shifts and Law's Embeddedness

The book explores cutting-edge interdisciplinary research strategies for the study of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Mikael Rask Madsen (Edited by), Fernanda Nicola (Edited by), Antoine Vauchez (Edited by)

9781316511299, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 May 2022

376 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.71 kg

The book takes stock of the on-going 'methodological turn' in the field of EU law scholarship. Introducing a new generation of scholars of the European Court of Justice from law, history, sociology, political science and linguistics, it provides a set of novel interdisciplinary research strategies and empirical materials for the study of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The twelve case studies included challenge the usual top-down approach to EU law and the CJEU and instead suggest a more localized and fine-grained observation of the socio-legal actors and practices involved in the making of CJEU case-law. Moving beyond mainstream legal scholarship and the established 'grand narratives' of legal integration, the volume provides a more historically-informed and sociologically-grounded account of the EU law's uneven embeddedness in Europe's economies and societies.

1. From methodological shifts to EU law's embeddedness Mikael Rask Madsen, Fernanda G. Nicola and Antoine Vauchez
2. 'In this beuraucratic silence EU law dies': fieldwork and the (non)-practice of EU law in national courts Tommaso Pavone
3. How to nail down a cloud: CJEU's construction of jurisprudential authority from a network perspective Amalie Frese
4. EU law mobilization: lessons from a bottom-up approach Jos Hoevenaars
5. Litigation strategies and the political framing of EU law: exploring the archives of a trade union lawyer in the Viking and Laval cases Julien Louis
6. Inquiring into conceptual practices: legal controversy at the Court of Justice of the European Union Vincent Réveillère
7. Through the lens of language: uncovering the collaborative nature of Advocates General's opinions Karen McAuliffe, Liana Muntean and Virginia Mattioli
8. A sense of common purpose: on the role of case assignment and the Judge-Rapporteur at the European Court of Justice Christoph Krenn
9. Judge biographies as a methodology to grasp the dynamics inside the CJEU and its relationship with EU member states Vera Fritz
10. The genesis of the institution within the institution: studying the mobilization for the creation of the Court of First Instance Lola Avril
11. Re-constructing the construction of Laval: studying EU law as a social interpretive process Jens Arnholtz
12. Judicially backed mutation: practices at the legal frontiers of the Eurozone crisis Nicholas Haagensen
13. Media attention for CJEU case law: measurement, data collection, and analysis of case salience data Julian Dederke
14. Embedding decoloniality in empirical EU studies Iyiola Solanke.

Subject Areas: International courts & procedures [LBHG], International organisations & institutions [LBBU], EU & European institutions [JPSN2], International relations [JPS]