Clifford J. Carrubba

Judicial Behavior under Political Constraints: Evidence from the European Court of Justice

The actual impact of judicial decisions often depends on the behavior of executive and legislative bodies that implement the rulings. Consequently, when a court hears a case involving the interests of those controlling the executive and legislative institutions, those interests can threaten to obstruct the courts intended outcome. In this paper, we evaluate whether and to what extent such constraints shape judicial rulings. Specifically, we examine how threats of noncompliance and legislative override influence decisions by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Based on a statistical analysis of a novel dataset of ECJ rulings, we find that the preferences of member-state governments—whose interests are central to threats of noncompliance and override—have a systematic and substantively important impact on ECJ decisions.

Legislative voting behavior, seen and unseen: a theory of roll-call vote selection

The empirical study of legislative behavior largely relies on roll-call-vote analysis, but roll-call votes in many legislatures represent only a sample of legislative votes. We have good reasons to believe this sample is particularly poor for inferring party effects on legislative behavior. The selection of votes for roll call may be endogenous to exactly the characteristics of voting behavior (for instance, party cohesion) that we want to study. We must understand the roll-call-vote institution and account for its selection effects before we can draw inferences about legislative behavior from roll-call results. This paper develops a game-theoretic model of roll- call-vote requests predicated on party leaders requesting votes to enforce party discipline. The model offers general and testable predictions about the selection process and how it affects observed and unobserved legislative voting behavior, particularly party cohesion.

A Model of the Endogenous Development of Judicial Institutions in Federal and International Systems

Why do sets of sovereign governments create judicial institutions and grant these institutions the power to rule their actions invalid? Once such a court is created, under what conditions is that court able to rule against these governments and get compliance with their rulings? Finally, how might the influence of the court change over time? This study presents a general theory of judicial institutions that provides a unified answer to these three questions. I argue that governments create judicial institutions to help solve collective action problems endemic to operating under a common regulatory regime. Once established, a court in its institutional “infancy” is capable of facilitating compliance with that regulatory regimes rules but only consistent with the purpose for which the governments created the court. And finally, once the court has earned the trust of a governments public, its ability to enforce the regulatory regimes rules qualitatively expands. In demonstrating this last point, I derive how and why publics can rationally come to believe that supporting a court, if there was a conflict between its government and the court, would be in that publics interest.

Legal Integration and Use of the Preliminary Ruling Process in the European Union

Scholars agree that the preliminary ruling system of the European Court of Justice has been instrumental in promoting European integration; however, no consensus has been reached as to why the system is used. Although many explanations have been posited, there has been no systematic comparative test among them to date. In this article, we perform this test. We find evidence that transnational economic activity, public support for integration, monist or dualist tradition, judicial review, and the publics political awareness influence use of the preliminary ruling system.We would like to acknowledge Matthew Gabel, Eric Reinhardt, Georg Vanberg, and Christopher Zorn for helpful comments. We would also like to acknowledge the support of NSF grant #0079084.

Information, Commitment, and War

The authors analyze a bargaining model of war that incorporates both commitment problems due to shifting power and asymmetric information. Four results emerge when both bargaining problems are present. First, in contrast to asymmetric information models, the resolution of uncertainty through fighting can lead to the continuation of war rather than its termination. Second, wars can be less—not more—likely to end in settlement the longer they last. Third, war aims increase over time as a belligerent becomes more confident that its opponent will grow unacceptably strong in the future. Finally, the dynamics that characterize wars in purely asymmetric information or commitment models should exist only when the other factor is absent.

The European Court of Justice, Democracy, and Enlargement

In Europe, there is increasing concern with how the operation of the Commission, Council of Ministers, and European Parliament is creating a democratic deficit. One institution that is generally considered central to the effective functioning of a democratic system, but tends to be neglected in these discussions, is the European Court of Justice (ECJ). After all, it is at least ostensibly the job of the legal system to ensure that no one is above the law, not even governments. This study applies a theory of judicial politics to identify under what conditions the ECJ can act as an effective democratic check in the European Union and how enlargement may affect that role.

Time constraints and the opportunity costs of oversight

In a principal–agent relationship, how should principals budget time for oversight when oversight activity is not instantaneous? We develop a formal model of resource allocation by a principal monitoring multiple agents, where the principal faces a dynamic budgeting problem. Our model reveals a tension between the value of holding resources in reserve to maintain the threat of an audit and the direct policy gains of monitoring activity. We show that as the frequency of principal–agent conflict increases, there are some conditions under which the most effective strategy for a principal is to allocate less and less of their total time to monitoring. The model has important implications for the empirical analysis of a monitoring setting where a principal oversees multiple agents.

Of Courts and Commerce

Courts often interpret and attempt to enforce rules designed to economically integrate federal and international organizations. In this article, we investigate to what degree court rulings can liberalize trade by examining data from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Studying the ECJ allows us to compare the Court’s effectiveness through two different mechanisms: infringement proceedings, which are purely a form of international adjudication, and preliminary references, which are applied through national courts. We find infringement rulings have no effect on a nation’s intra-EU imports, while preliminary rulings have a positive, though temporary, effect on a nation’s intra-EU imports.

Courts, Compliance, and the Quest for Legitimacy in International Law

Abstract International courts are an integral component of the international legal system. These courts have been proliferating over time and increasingly working to ensure state compliance with the rules of the international regulatory regimes they join. However, these courts face a fundamental challenge: while they can rule against governments in violation of the regime’s rules, they cannot enforce those decisions. Working from the first principle that the regulatory regime is designed to help resolve collective action problems among the signees, this Article proposes a formal model of international court influence that helps to explain the extent and limits of international court influence on national government behavior.