The European Union today stands on the brink of radical institutional and constitutional change. The most recent enlargement and proposed legal reforms reflect a commitment to democracy: stabilizing political life for citizens governed by new regimes, and constructing a European Union more accountable to civil society. Despite the perceived novelty of these reforms, this book explains (through quantitative data and qualitative case analyses) how the European Court of Justice has developed and sustained a vibrant tradition of democratic constitutionalism since the 1960s. The book documents the dramatic consequences of this institutional change for civil society and public policy reform throughout Europe. Cichowski offers detailed empirical and historical studies of gender equality and environmental protection law across fifteen countries and over thirty years, revealing important linkages between civil society, courts and the construction of governance. The findings bring into question dominant understandings of legal integration.

The nature of the currently emerging European society, which includes the economic and social transformation of Eastern and Central European countries, has been hotly debated. At its center is the relationship between markets and civil society within political and social contexts. The contributors to this volume offer perspectives from various disciplines (the social sciences, conceptual history, law, economics) and from several European countries in order to explore the ways in which markets influence various forms of civil society, such as individual freedom, social cohesion, economic effectiveness and democratic governance, and influence the construction of a civil society in a broader sense.

ÔThis well-constructed, and well-written, collection fills a gap in the scholarship. It offers a rounded and plausible picture of the CourtÕs role in Europe, engaging with the complexity of the law without losing sight of the bigger political picture. Well-contextualised, critical, but nuanced, discussions of the role of rights, economics, science, and institutions, and of the important particularities of EU adjudication, will make this volume unmissable for those interested in the political role of the Court of Justice of the EU.Õ Ð Gareth Davies, VU University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands This book delves into the rationale, components of, and responses to accusations of judicial activism at the European Court of Justice. Detailed chapters from academics, practitioners and stakeholders bring diverse perspectives on a range of factors Ð from access rules to institutional design and to substantive functions Ð influencing the European CourtÕs political role. Each of the contributing authors invites the reader to approach the debate on the role of the Court in terms of a constantly evolving set of interactions between the EU judiciary, the European and national political spheres, as well as a multitude of other actors vested in competing legitimacy claims. The book questions the political role of the Court as much as it stresses the opportunities Ð and corresponding responsibilities Ð that the CourtÕs case law offers to independent observers, political institutions and civil society organisations. Judicial Activism at the European Court of Justice will appeal to researchers and graduate students as well as to EU and national officials.

The regulation of civil society provides the framework under which those organisations can most effectively provide services in education, health, social services, housing, development aid and so on. Civil Society in Europe identifies common principles of civil society law in two ways. First, the approaches of the Council of Europe and the European Union are explored. Next, civil society regulation in twelve domestic legal systems are investigated on a broad range of substantive areas of law including internal organisation, registration, external supervision, public benefit organisations and international activities. From these, the authors distill a set of minimum norms and optimal conditions under which civil society can deliver its aims most effectively. This book is essential reading for policymakers and legislators across Europe and beyond.

The European Union is often depicted as a cradle of judicial activism and a polity built by courts. Tommaso Pavone shows how this judge-centric narrative conceals a crucial arena for political action. Beneath the radar, Europe's political development unfolded as a struggle between judges who resisted European law and lawyers who pushed them to embrace change. Under the sheepskin of rights-conscious litigants and activist courts, these “Euro-lawyers” sought clients willing to break state laws conflicting with European law, lobbied national judges to uphold European rules, and propelled them to submit noncompliance cases to the European Union's supreme court – the European Court of Justice – by ghostwriting their referrals. By shadowing lawyers who encourage deliberate law-breaking and mobilize courts against their own governments, The Ghostwriters overturns the conventional wisdom regarding the judicial construction of Europe and illuminates how the politics of lawyers can profoundly impact institutional change and transnational governance.

Setting out to explore critically the way civil society has entered development thinking, policy and practice as a paradigmatic concept of the 21st century, Howell (development studies, U. of Sussex) and Pearce (Latin American politics, U. of Bradford) trace the historical path leading to the encounter between the ideas of development and civil society in the late 1980s and how donors have translated these into development policy an programs. They find that there are competing normative visions, which have deep roots in Western European political thought, about the role of civil society in relation to the state and market both among donors and within the societies where donors are operating. This leads to donors playing a major role in shaping the character of service provision. They also argue that their study exposes the hitherto unexplored power of the market, as opposed to solely the state, to distort donor programs. c. Book News Inc.

Since the turn of the millennium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide 'rights revolution'. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Convention of Human Rights and its highly acclaimed judicial tribunal in Strasbourg is the extensive obligations of the contracting states to give observable effect to its judgments. Dia Anagnostou explores the domestic execution of the European Court of Human Rights' judgments and dissects the variable patterns of implementation within and across states. She relates how marginalised individuals, civil society and minority actors strategically take recourse in the Strasbourg Court to challenge state laws, policies and practices. These bottom-up dynamics influencing the domestic implementation of human rights have been little explored in the scholarly literature until now. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, Anagnostou goes beyond the existing studies--mainly legal and descriptive--and contributes to the flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics.