Judicial Politics, Legal Mobilisation, and Empirical Legal Studies of the European Union

The EU legal order has undergone a number of shocks and stress tests recently: from Brexit to rule of law backsliding in some member states to simmering conflicts between national judiciaries and the Court of Justice (CJEU), EU law and politics are in an unsettled state of flux. At the same time, civil society organizations and the European Parliament have supported the CJEU as it reasserts its roles as motor of European integration and defender of judicial independence and the rule of law. Scholars across different research traditions and fields - judicial politics in political science, legal mobilization in socio-legal studies, and empirical legal studies in law - have all dedicated their attention to these events, yet interdisciplinary exchanges remain lacking. We invite papers and panel proposals that bridge these disciplinary and methodological divides and cast new empirical or theoretical light on perennial topics animating law and politics research in the EU – such as judicial behaviour, development of legal doctrine through case law, the separation of powers, the selection of judges, public attitudes towards courts, and strategic litigation – as well as contributions focusing on the judicial aspects of current rule of law challenges in Europe: The politicization of national and supranational judiciaries, the politics of enforcing EU rule of law norms before the CJEU, the problems of judicial corruption and cooptation, and the promises and perils accompanying judicial rebellions and defiance. We also invite contributions that wield contemporary events and data to revisit foundational narratives of integration through law, including the notion that EU law can tame national governments and forge supranational power. We welcome contributions from a variety of disciplines - such as political science, sociology, and law - and methodological approaches - including qualitative, quantitative, and multi-method research.