Stability and Change in Support for the European Court of Justice

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9311397 GIBSON This project addresses questions of stability and change in mass support for the European Court of Justice. It is important for social stability in democracies to know how legal institutions sustain themselves. Most courts have no access to the powerful legitimizing process of elections, while at the same time they are often charged with making decisions contrary to the preferences of (sometimes impassioned) majorities. Why do citizens comply with unpopular decisions of courts? In the absence of stores of institutional legitimacy, compliance itself is a problematic question. These problems of legitimacy and compliance assume even broader importance in the context of emerging transnational legal institutions like the European Court of Justice. The European Court of Justice, the high court of the European Community, has become the most powerful judicial institution in Europe and has been the single institution most effective at promoting the integration of Europe. In light of its increasingly salient and controversial decisions, it is important to ask how this court is acquiring political legitimacy and how willing are individual Europeans to accept its decisions. This project investigates the connections between legitimacy and compliance, focusing on the European Court of Justice. It focuses in particular on change in mass attitudes toward the Court, on how these attitudes are formed, evolve and ultimately affect popular willingness to accept Court decisions. The data collection will be by survey of a panel of respondents (300 in each of seven countries that are members of the European Community). The projects promises to make a significant contribution to the scientific understanding of legitimation processes and how legitimacy affects compliance. ***