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We hope that the data and the analysis presented here will inform new research on European legal integration, and that our interpretations of the data will stimulate criticism. Better theory and more intensive, theoretically-informed empirical work in specific areas of the law is clearly needed.
We examined patterns of preliminary references on a number of dimensions, finding support for the "judicial empowerment" thesis elaborated by Weiler and Burley-Mattli; the data provide little support for the critiques offered by Alter and Golub, at least as those critiques are now elaborated as theory. While helping us to understand certain general dynamics of the ECJ-national courts relationship, the dominant judicial empowerment thesis nevertheless remains incapable of explaining crossnational variance in the intensity of that relationship. We found broad support for theories of European legal integration that emphasize the reciprocal impact of litigants and transnational exchange, EC law, and judicial rulemaking. In our view, the evidence strongly suggests that the European legal order has been constructed as a self-sustaining, self-organizing system. If we are right, the impact of the legal system on other systems of EC governance will continue to widen in scope and deepen in intensity.
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