Supranational institution-building in the European Union

A comparison of the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank

Bibliographic Data

ID7880420
AuthorsDorothee Heisenberg, Amy Richmond, Amy R Richmond (0000-0002-9045-537X)
Year2002
Volume9
Issue2
Pages201-218
Publication date2002-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of European Public Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-1763 • E-ISSN: 1466-4429
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13501760110120228
OpenAlexW2014604896
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited8

The completion of the new supranational ECB provides an opportunity to compare how the EU builds new institutions. On the face of it, the two institutions now have a similar status, however, the creation of the ECJ was very different than that of the ECB. This paper looks comparatively at the two institutions and asks how the workings of these institutions have been affected by the initial mandate. Concretely, we examine the path the ECJ has taken to becoming an important EU actor, and compare that to the path that created the ECB. Will the ECB give rise to a literature similar to the ECJ about the institution’s independence from Member State interference (Burley and Mattli, Garrett, Atler), or does the ECB’s explicit mandate (price stability above all), institutional structure (strict independence), and delineated scope preclude any suggestion that the ECB considers the wishes of important Member States when it makes monetary policy? We examine four aspects of institutional design which may have significant impact on the institutional functioning of the two supranational institutions: 1) intentionality (did the Member States intend to create a supranational institution), 2) specificity (how concrete is the mandate of the institution), 3) relationship to national institution (how much does the supranational institution depend on its national counterpart), and 4) institutional copying (is the supranational institution explicitly modeled on a specific national institution). We find that each of these elements has significant implications for the institutions' stability and their ability to carry out their respective mandates

Autonomy · Economic Justice · Economics · European union · Independence (probability theory · Institution · International trade · Law and economics · Mandate · Member state · Member states · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · European and International Law Studies · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Public Administration

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