What is “Politicisation” of Constitutional Courts? Towards a Decision-oriented Concept. (original) (raw)

‘Politicisation’ is one of the most frequently used keywords in public discourse and scientific research on constitutional courts. However, whereas the concept of judicialisation, which is equally important in this field of research, has been the subject of considerable discussion in political and legal theory, a distinct definition of the term politicisation is lacking in many studies. In light of this, we address the question of how politicisation of constitutional courts can adequately be understood. To this end, we examine the theoretical conceptions of the relationship between politics, law and constitutional adjudication that underlie the different understandings of politicisation. Based on our findings, we develop a decision-oriented concept of politicisation, which is not only suitable for many theoretical approaches, but can also be detected in numerous empirical studies.