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Centralizing the EU? An analysis of the European Court of Justice's tendency to rule in favor of centralization of the European Union

Olai, Lovisa LU and Lehmkuhl, Linnea LU (2012) STVA21 20121
Department of Political Science
Abstract
The European Court of Justice has increasingly gained influence in the European Union, and it is therefore interesting to see what affect this has on the EU as well as the member states. The purpose of this study is to see how the ECJ has balanced the interests of the EU as a whole with the interests of the member states. Due to the ECJ’s increasing amount of power, our hypothesis is that the ECJ has gone from favoring the member states’ interest to favoring the EU interest, which is noteworthy since it is able to override the member state’s national legislation.
This study is a text analysis where six court rulings, starting after the Single European Act in 1987 to 2010, are examined to reveal the ECJ’s reasoning and ideas concerning the... (More)
The European Court of Justice has increasingly gained influence in the European Union, and it is therefore interesting to see what affect this has on the EU as well as the member states. The purpose of this study is to see how the ECJ has balanced the interests of the EU as a whole with the interests of the member states. Due to the ECJ’s increasing amount of power, our hypothesis is that the ECJ has gone from favoring the member states’ interest to favoring the EU interest, which is noteworthy since it is able to override the member state’s national legislation.
This study is a text analysis where six court rulings, starting after the Single European Act in 1987 to 2010, are examined to reveal the ECJ’s reasoning and ideas concerning the EU and member states’ interests. This analysis is built on William H. Riker’s theory on federalism that classifies federalism into two extreme categories: maximum and minimum centralized federalism. These categories are used as ideal types and after the analysis, we will classify which of these ideal types each ruling resembles the most.
Of all the court rulings, there was only one exception where the ECJ ruled in the member state’s interest and this shows that the ECJ has not increasingly favored the EU interest, but instead has steadily supported the EU interest over time. (Less)
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author
Olai, Lovisa LU and Lehmkuhl, Linnea LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVA21 20121
year
type
L2 - 2nd term paper (old degree order)
subject
keywords
European Union, European Court of Justice, centralization, federalism, William H. Riker
language
English
id
2541798
date added to LUP
2012-06-27 16:53:28
date last changed
2012-06-27 16:53:28
@misc{2541798,
  abstract     = {{The European Court of Justice has increasingly gained influence in the European Union, and it is therefore interesting to see what affect this has on the EU as well as the member states. The purpose of this study is to see how the ECJ has balanced the interests of the EU as a whole with the interests of the member states. Due to the ECJ’s increasing amount of power, our hypothesis is that the ECJ has gone from favoring the member states’ interest to favoring the EU interest, which is noteworthy since it is able to override the member state’s national legislation.
This study is a text analysis where six court rulings, starting after the Single European Act in 1987 to 2010, are examined to reveal the ECJ’s reasoning and ideas concerning the EU and member states’ interests. This analysis is built on William H. Riker’s theory on federalism that classifies federalism into two extreme categories: maximum and minimum centralized federalism. These categories are used as ideal types and after the analysis, we will classify which of these ideal types each ruling resembles the most.
Of all the court rulings, there was only one exception where the ECJ ruled in the member state’s interest and this shows that the ECJ has not increasingly favored the EU interest, but instead has steadily supported the EU interest over time.}},
  author       = {{Olai, Lovisa and Lehmkuhl, Linnea}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Centralizing the EU? An analysis of the European Court of Justice's tendency to rule in favor of centralization of the European Union}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}