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Can constitutional court decisions shape public opinion on a governmental policy? Previous studies have focused on the US Supreme Court, which enjoys a high degree of public support as the major resource of power for courts. In this study, we examine the extent to which courts can influence public opinion regarding a government bill at European courts. First, we argue that the public support for courts also allows them to move public opinion on policies into the direction of their decisions. This works in both directions: they can confer legitimacy to a policy that they support, but they can also de-legitimize a policy that they oppose. Second, we argue that this mechanism strongly depends on the amount of support that a court receives. It only has an effect for courts that possess a higher institutional legitimacy and among the group of citizens trusting a court. We test our arguments by combining a most different systems design for France and Germany with a survey priming experiment on a school security bill. France and Germany are selected for a most different systems design as they exhibit different institutional designs as well as different levels of support for the court at the aggregate level. The survey experiment is implemented within large national election surveys, the German Internet Panel and the French National Election Study. Both experiments contain more than 2,600 respondents each. Our survey experiment primes for decision outcomes and different institutions to understand whether there are differences between an institution supporting and opposing a policy and between a court and alternative institutions. Our findings confirm that with higher public support, courts can move the opinion of citizens to both legitimize and de-legitimize a policy. This effect can be found at the aggregate level for a court enjoying higher public support, but also at the individual level for respondents with higher trust in the court. Interestingly, courts can even move the opinion of citizens with strong prior attitudes in the opposite direction, if these citizens highly trust the court. These findings have implications beyond the study itself. First, they confirm that the legitimacy-conferring effect can also be observed for European courts, not only for the US Supreme Court. Second, they show that the relevance of a mechanism identified for a single case, like the US Supreme Court, might only hold for specific conditions. As public support for courts strongly varies across countries in Europe, we also expect the impact of any mechanism relying on public support to strongly vary, as we can observe in our own analysis.

The number of constitutional courts and supreme courts with constitutional review rights has strongly increased with the third wave of democratisation across the world as an important element of the new constitutionalism. These courts play an important role in day-to-day politics as they can nullify acts of parliament and thus prevent or reverse a change in the status quo. Inmacro-concepts of comparative politics, their role is unclear. Either they are integrated as counter-majoritarian institutional features of a political system or they are entirely ignored: some authors do not discuss their potential impact at all, while others dismiss them because they believe their preferences as veto players are entirely absorbed by other actors in the political system. However, we know little about the conditions and variables that determine them as being counter-majoritarian or veto players. This article employs the concept of Tsebelis’ veto player theory to analyse the question. It focuses on the spatial configuration of veto players in the legislative process and then adds the court as an additional player to find out if it is absorbed in the pareto-efficient set of the existing players or not.A court which is absorbed by other veto players should not in theory veto new legislation. It is argued in this article that courts are conditional veto players. Their veto is dependent on three variables: the ideological composition of the court; the pattern of government control; and the legislative procedures. To empirically support the analysis, data from the United States, France and Germany from 1974 to 2009 is used. This case selection increases variance with regard to system types and court types. The main finding is that courts are not always absorbed as veto players: during the period of analysis, absorption varies between 11 and 71 per cent in the three systems. Furthermore, the pattern of absorption is specific in each country due to government control, court majority and legislative procedure. Therefore, it can be concluded that they are conditional veto players. The findings have at least two implications. First, constitutional courts and supreme courts with judicial review rights should be systematically included in veto player analysis of political systems and not left aside. Any concept ignoring such courts may lead to invalid results, and any concept that counts such courts merely as an institutional feature may lead to distorted results that overor under-estimate their impact. Second, the findings also have implications for the study of judicial politics. The main bulk of literature in this area is concerned with auto-limitation, the so-called ‘self-restraint’ of the government to avoid defeat at the court. This auto-limitation, however, should only occur if a court is not absorbed.However, vetoes observed when the court is absorbed might be explained by strategic behaviour among judges engaging in selective defection.

The number of constitutional courts and supreme courts with constitutional review rights hasstrongly increased with the third wave of democratisation across the world as an important element of thenew constitutionalism. These courts play an important role in day-to-day politics as they can nullify acts ofparliament and thus prevent or reverse a change in the status quo. Inmacro-concepts of comparative politics,their role is unclear. Either they are integrated as counter-majoritarian institutional features of a politicalsystem or they are entirely ignored: some authors do not discuss their potential impact at all, while othersdismiss them because they believe their preferences as veto players are entirely absorbed by other actorsin the political system. However, we know little about the conditions and variables that determine them asbeing counter-majoritarian or veto players. This article employs the concept of Tsebelis’ veto player theoryto analyse the question. It focuses on the spatial configuration of veto players in the legislative process andthen adds the court as an additional player to find out if it is absorbed in the pareto-efficient set of the existingplayers or not.A court which is absorbed by other veto players should not in theory veto new legislation. Itis argued in this article that courts are conditional veto players. Their veto is dependent on three variables:the ideological composition of the court; the pattern of government control; and the legislative procedures.To empirically support the analysis, data from the United States, France and Germany from 1974 to 2009 isused. This case selection increases variance with regard to system types and court types. The main finding isthat courts are not always absorbed as veto players: during the period of analysis, absorption varies between11 and 71 per cent in the three systems. Furthermore, the pattern of absorption is specific in each countrydue to government control, court majority and legislative procedure. Therefore, it can be concluded thatthey are conditional veto players. The findings have at least two implications. First, constitutional courtsand supreme courts with judicial review rights should be systematically included in veto player analysis ofpolitical systems and not left aside. Any concept ignoring such courts may lead to invalid results, and anyconcept that counts such courts merely as an institutional feature may lead to distorted results that overorunder-estimate their impact. Second, the findings also have implications for the study of judicial politics.The main bulk of literature in this area is concerned with auto-limitation, the so-called ‘self-restraint’ of thegovernment to avoid defeat at the court. This auto-limitation, however, should only occur if a court is notabsorbed.However, vetoes observed when the court is absorbed might be explained by strategic behaviouramong judges engaging in selective defection.