Veto player theory is a very powerful and common instrument to analyze the configuration of preferences and institutions within and across political systems (Tsebelis 2002, König et al. 2010).
Three observations arise regarding the analysis of constitutional courts in this concept. Firstly, despite being recognized as veto players in the literature research on courts lacks more fine grained theoretical and empirical analyses.
Second, veto player analysis extensively relies on a spatial model to understand collective outcomes in negotiation processes or political systems. However, it falls short in terms of capturing the complex process of interactions when courts are involved.
Thirdly, while court preferences play an important role in US Supreme Court analysis, it is widely neglected with a few exemptions for European courts (Hönnige 2009, Hanretty 2012).
The aim of this paper is to tackle these gaps: Embedded in the veto player theory, it models the complex multi-step interaction between court, legislature, litigant and the public by using a dynamic game-theoretic model, which also takes into account the court’s preferences. It exemplifies this model for the Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court).
