A judicialisation of healthcare policies in Denmark and Spain? The universalist healthcare model meets the European Union

This article examines the impact of judicialisation on the right to cross-border healthcare in Denmark and Spain, that is, the national impact of legal integration as spurred by the Court of Justice of the European Union. We expect the national impact of judicialisation to be conditioned by the ex-post judicial, administrative and political responses, particularly the national courts' activation of EU law. By using new data, a compilation of national court cases, quasi-judicial proceedings and research interviews with key respondents, we examine the process of judicialisation in the two member states. The findings demonstrate that the national courts hardly played a role in Denmark and that although the courts were more active in Spain, the rulings remained largely unobserved by the political and administrative elite and the courts were thus unable to push for change. The administrative and political responses were found to be quite similar in the two member states, adapting to EU-induced changes in a protectionist and defensive manner. We conclude that the two universalistic healthcare models have so far proved resistant to judicialisation and that the discrepancy between what emerges de jure at the supranational level and the de facto rights produced at the national level is still a wide one

Judicial Trust as a Zero-Sum Game in Turbulent Times

The current European Rule of Law crisis has resulted in a situation of distrust between national and European institutions, which has led to the necessity to reflect about the relevance of trust and its implications for the creation and sustainability of a European legal area. In this regard, Prof. von Bogdandy has recently stressed in this blog the importance of trust as a crucial element for promoting cooperation in multi-level systems, like the EU, where non-strict hierarchical relationships between national and EU institutions are articulated. In this post, I argue about the importance of trust among judges in the European legal system based on recent empirical findings

The politics of judging EU law : a new approach to national courts in the legal integration of Europe

Defence date: 5 December 2013Examining Board: Professor Adrienne Héritier, European University Institute/ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (Supervisor) Professor Bruno de Witte, European University Institute/Maastricht University Professor Marlene Wind, University of Copenhagen Professor Alec Stone Sweet, Yale University.This research aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the political and institutional processes that are at work in the judicial application of EU law on a national level. As a main novelty, the research intends to go beyond judicial behaviour models that focus predominantly on explaining the use of preliminary references. One could namely suggest that the way national courts participate in the preliminary reference procedure is not sufficient to assess the available modes for the judicial integration of Europe. Accordingly, the study considers the impact of political institutional and attitudinal factors affecting the judicial enforcement of EU law. This is done by posing new questions, for instance, the relevance of national judges’ preferences towards EU legal order and institutions, as well as by evaluating and reviewing the impact of political and legal institutions on their behaviour and its consequences for policy areas. First of all, the analysis confirms the influence of judges’ evaluation of EU institutions and their national counterparts on their self-perception as EU judges and, subsequently, in the application of EU law. Secondly, the study shows how national institutions, like governments and national high courts, play a prominent role in shaping national courts’ incentives for the application of EU law, as they may use their institutional power to circumvent judges’ decisions. Finally, it reviews the strategic use of European instruments such as the CJEU precedent and its doctrines (e.g. supremacy) to overcome domestic threats when applying EU law. To conclude, the study tries to expand the explanatory power of the middle range accounts of the role national courts played, by integrating the analytical strength of the legalist/ intergovernmentalist theories into neo-functionalism

La politización de la aplicación judicial del Derecho Europeo: un estudio del Tribunal Supremo Español

The main aim of this work is to show the relevance of political factors in the judicial enforcement of EU law by the Spanish Supreme Court. For that purpose we use original empirical evidence gathered from Supreme Court�s decisions on EU law. The study finds to what extent the Spanish high court is concerned about the position and pledges of political institutions when assessing EU law application. That consideration is determined by the necessity of compliance of political institutions with its decisions. Nevertheless, the results show how the Supreme Court is less affected by the position and reservations alleged by political actors when it is able to legitimize and support the enforcement of EU law with decisions taken by the European Court of Justice.El principal objetivo de este trabajo es evidenciar la importancia de los factores políticos en la aplicación judicial del derecho europeo por parte del Tribunal Supremo español. Para esta labor se utiliza novedosa evidencia empírica extraída de decisiones del Tribunal Supremo relativas al derecho europeo. El estudio muestra en qué medida el alto tribunal es afectado por la posición y alegaciones de las instituciones políticas y administración cuando sopesa la aplicación del derecho europeo. Dicha consideración viene determinada por la necesaria conformidad y acatamiento de sus sentencias por parte de las instituciones políticas. No obstante, los resultados revelan cómo el Supremo es menos sensible a las reservas legales de los actores políticos cuando es capaz de legitimar y apoyar la aplicación del derecho europeo en decisiones del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea

GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement System (1980-2000)

This is a derived dataset from the replication dataset for the “Developing Countries and GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement” Journal of World Trade, 37:4 (2003), 719-735 by Eric Reinhardt and completed with the inclusion of new variables: exports, imports, bilateral economic aid, etc. The dataset includes 380 concluded GATT/WTO disputes filed from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 2000

The electoral consequences of corruption scandals in Spain

Previous studies of the electoral consequences of corruption in Spanish local elections (Jiménez Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas, 6(2):43– 76, 2007; Fernández-Vázquez and Rivero 2011, Consecuencias electorales de la corrupción, 2003–2007. Estudios de Progreso, Fundación Alternativas; Costas et al. European Journal of Political Economy: 28(4):469-484, 2012) have found that voters do not necessarily punish corrupt mayors. As has been pointed out in the comparative literature, the average loss of electoral support by corrupt incumbents is small and does not prevent their reelection most of the times (Jiménez and Caínzos 2006, How far and why do corruption scandals cost votes? In Garrard, J. and Newell, J. (eds.) Scandals in past and contemporary politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press). What remains unsolved, however, is the remarkable variability in this pattern. This article explores some of the micro-level variables that may mediate the effect of corruption scandal on the votes. We focus on three factors: ideological closeness to the incumbent party, political sophistication, and employment status. Our results provide only partial support for our hypotheses, suggesting that the effects of corruption are much more complex than what may seem at first sigh

Elecciones municipales en España: un análisis multinivel de los determinantes individuales y contextuales del voto

Since the establishment of the first democratic local councils in 1979, ten municipal elections have taken place in Spain. In the few studies devoted to them, voting has habitually been explained by using national variables and following the wellknown model of second-order elections. In this paper we examine the validity of these conclusions by also considering local factors. We have estimated several hierarchical models using an ambitious datasetwhich includes both individual and contextual variables for a representative sample of Spanish municipalities between 1991 and 2011. Our empirical results are particularly interesting, with individual factors such as voters’ ideology and contextual indicators such as the unemployment rate at the municipal level having a significant impact on the probability of voting for the incumbent mayor’s party.Desde la instauración de los primeros ayuntamientos democráticos en 1979, se han celebrado diez elecciones municipales en España. En los escasos estudios dedicados a ellas, el voto ha sido habitualmente explicado recurriendo a variables de ámbito nacional según el conocido modelo de las elecciones de segundo orden. En este trabajo examinaremos la validez de estos patrones de comportamiento cuando introducimos también factores explicativos de carácter local. Para comprobarlo, hemos estimado distintos modelos multinivel utilizando una ambiciosa base de datos que contiene variables individuales y contextuales para una muestra representativa de municipios españoles entre 1991 y 2011. Los resultados son sumamente interesantes: factores individuales como la ideología de los votantes e indicadores contextuales como la tasa de desempleo a nivel municipal inciden de manera significativa en la probabilidad de votar al partido del alcalde