The Court’s Role in Processes of European Integration

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of prior political science works on the CJEU’s role and autonomy. The chapter traces these works from their origins in 1980s contextualist legal literature, over their meta-theoretical phases during the 1990s, up onto the most recent writings. Whilst debates on the CJEU’s role have been declared ‘closed’ or ‘resolved’ at various stages over this long time period, claims and counter-claims on the interpretative leeway the Court enjoys relative to the EU Member States continue to claim the attention of the field. The chapter’s concluding section retraces the different sets of hindrances of both a theoretical and methodological nature that account for the striking perseverance of these academic divides. The findings on these theoretical and methodological hindrances constitute the background against which, in the chapter’s final section, the theoretical perspectives and methodological strategies of the present study are presented in detail.