Towards a legally plausible theory of judicialization in the European Union

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the development of judicialization literature in the EU arguing that – in spite of the obvious advantages of inter-disciplinary collaboration – scholarship on judicialization in law and political science is drafting apart in the 21st Century. While early political science research on the European Courts found theoretical inspiration in legal research, law and political science have increasingly diverging epistemological and methodological starting points. As the article argues, using prominent papers, this results in both disciplines producing partial accounts of judicial change with limited external validity. The article concludes by offering routes to improving the inter-disciplinary foundations of judicialization research.