DEMOCRACY AND LEGITIMACY IN THE EUROPEAN-UNION - THE COURT OF JUSTICEAND ITS CONSTITUENTS

For the last decade, we have researched the relationships between high courts and their mass publics. Recently, we have investigated mass at titudes towards the European Court of Justice (ECJ), an issue of some considerable concern in light of the contemporary shortfall in legitim acy among European Union institutions, We first present both a concept ual and operational approach to thinking about mass attitudes towards high judicial institutions. Relying on earlier work by David Easton an d others, we examine the concept of 'diffuse support', present our mea sures of the concept, and report data from a survey of the mass public s of the European Union, Next, we report on our efforts to assess the causes of attitudes rewards the ECJ, paying particular attention to th e role of basic legal values in shaping the views of this institution. Finally, and most importantly, we examine the basic, constitutive hyp othesis of our research - that diffuse support for the ECJ contributes to compliance with its decisions, and although we fmd it has little m ass diffuse support, what support it enjoys does indeed translate into willingness to comply with unpopular decisions. We conclude the artic le with some ideas about directions for future research on the ECJ and its publics.