The limits of transnational scholarship on EU law : a view from Germany

Abstract:

Scholarship on EU law is well established but arguably lacks sensitivity to the methodological characteristics of transnational discourse. The defining features of the supranational legal order are more fluid than those of domestic legal systems and, moreover, academic debates occur in different languages.

This contribution highlights the limits of transnational debates about EU law through a quantitative assessment of both citation practices and the geographical spread of authorship in specialised law journals. Against that background, it uses the example of Germany to designate areas defining national specificities in the methodological approach towards EU law. In doing so, this contribution considers language regimes, publication formats, the role of legal education and practice, the relative weight of theoretical and doctrinal approaches, as well as interaction with international and constitutional law