What's Law Got to Do With It? - EG-domstolens (o)beroende utifrån ett principal-agent perspektiv
OberoendeEG-domstolenPrincipal-agent teoriFördragsbrottPolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
The purposes of this thesis is study the European Court of Justice from a non legal perspective and investigate the courts possibility to advance its own preferred goals rather that of the member states in cases of non-compliance. Drawing on general principal-agent theory I construct a model from which I derive certain hypothesis mainly about under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be more sensitive to member states preferences and under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be less sensitive. These hypotheses are then tested empirically against all cases of non-compliance initiated by the European Commission against member states between 1953-2000. The results from the study are rather positive. The most important result is that when the threat of sanctions against the Court increases so does the Courts sensitiveness to member states preferences and when it decreases so does the Courts sensitiveness.