Judicialisation and Regulatory Governance

Abstract

The study of ‘the judicialization of politics’ as a phenomenon in democratic countries is based on the analysis of changes in the distribution of authority between governmental branches over time. Theoretical accounts of this process tend to emphasise the role of higher and lower courts and litigants in the context of ‘regulatory governance’ (Tate & Vallinder,1997; Epstein et al, 2001; Hirschl,2008; Kelemen, 2012; Stone Sweet, 2004/2010); that is institutionalised modes of social coordination producing, implementing and enforcing collectively binding rules (Boerzel & Risse, 2010). Yet, while the literature on judicial activism and legal mobilisation offer interesting accounts of said processes, we are still in need of comparative data on the operation of a general mechanism of governance, linking judicial decisions to public policy making on a broader level. This panel thus invites papers investigating concrete observable implications of the relationship between judicial decisions and policy formulation, implementation and enforcement. It aims to pinpoint more concretely which features of regulatory governance are amenable to change through judicial intervention over time and which are not. Overall, the panel encourages research design-oriented, methodological papers with a comparative focus; both qualitative and quantitative contributions are welcome.

Title	Details
More Power, Less Legitimacy? How the Judicialization of Politics has Contributed to a Decreased Legitimacy of that Judiciary. A Case Study of the Netherlands	View Paper Details
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Measuring Judicial Activism: Is the European Court of Justice an Activist Court?	View Paper Details
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