research. · Benjamin Gerhard Engst

My research interests include comparative political behavior, comparative political institutions, public policy, and interactions between politics, law, and society in cross-European comparison.

Publications

Book

Engst, B. G. (2021). The two faces of judicial power: Dynamics of judicial-political bargaining. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46016-7

Journal articles

Engst, B. G., & Gschwend, T. (forthcoming). Citizens and the courts: Resilience against democratic backsliding. European Journal of Political Research.

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How do citizens respond when elected governments they support propose reforms that weaken judicial independence? Discrete choice experiments in nine European countries show broad public support for an independent judiciary in all of them. This commitment weakens, however, where polarization is higher and trust in courts is lower, which suggests that democratic resilience is conditional.

Replication data

Engst, B. G., Grundmanns, D. M., & Gschwend, T. (2025). How to place non-majoritarian institutions and political actors in a common policy space? Spatial modeling of court-executive interactions. Journal of Politics, 87(4), 1335-1349. https://doi.org/10.1086/732980

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How can we estimate positions of non-majoritarian institutions in a common policy space? To answer this question, we take the highest courts as examples of powerful non-majoritarian institutions and develop a new scaling approach to estimate their positions in a common policy space with other political actors. In contrast to previous research, our approach neither relies on individual votes of justices nor assumes that justices “inherit” positions from political actors who nominated them. Instead, for each court decision, we use the positions of political actors expressed in written statements as well as the courts’ decision outcome to estimate comparable policy positions. In two applications, we position the German Federal Constitutional Court with different German governments and the European Court of Justice with different European governments in common policy spaces and validate them. Finally, we show how our common policy scores can be used to study court–executive relations and interinstitutional interactions.

Replication data

Arnold, C., Engst, B. G., & Gschwend, T. (2023). Scaling court decisions with citation networks. Journal of Law and Courts, 11(1), 25-44. https://doi.org/10.1086/717420

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To compare court decisions in a systematic way, it is typically necessary to first read these decisions and then apply legal methods to them. Measurement models that support analysts in this manual labor usually rely on judges’ voting records. Since these data are often not available, we instead propose a latent-variable model that uses the widely available references in court decisions to measure the decisions’ latent position in their common case-space. We showcase our model in the context of forum shopping and forum selling of Germany’s lower courts.

Replication data

Garwe, C., Engst, B. G., Stawicki, Y., & Hönnige, C. (2022). Temporal strategies: Governments alter the pace of legislation in bicameralism depending on electoral expectations. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 47(1), 127-156. https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12327

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Does a government in a bicameral system strategically alter the length of the legislative process in the first chamber in anticipation of future majorities in the second chamber? Drawing on an existing formal model of dynamic policymaking, we argue that governing majorities strategically accelerate or delay their agenda when a potential majority change in the second chamber is imminent. If the government fears losing control over the second chamber, then the government accelerates their agenda. By contrast, if the government hopes to gain control over the second chamber, the government decelerates their agenda. We test our argument in Germany’s symmetric and asymmetric bicameralism by analyzing 1,966 governmental bills from 1998 to 2013. The analyses confirm our expectations for symmetric bicameralism, thus suggesting that the synchronicity of election cycles should be taken into account both in the analysis of bicameral systems and in institutional design of such systems.

Replication data

Zúñiga, M. G., Schell, A., Engst, B. G., & Carey, J. P. (2021). Reducing sound exposure during ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential testing for superior semicircular canal dehiscence syndrome. Otology & Neurotology, 42(6), 735-743. https://doi.org/10.1097/MAO.0000000000003084

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Background: Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMP) testing in response to air-conducted sound (ACS) has excellent sensitivity and specificity for superior semicircular canal dehiscence syndrome (SCDS). However, patients with SCDS may experience vertigo with the test, and recent works recommend minimizing acoustic energy during VEMP testing.

Purpose: To develop an oVEMP protocol that reduces discomfort and increases safety without compromising reliability.

Methods: Subjects: Fifteen patients diagnosed with SCDS based on clinical presentation, audiometry, standard VEMP testing, and computed tomography (CT) imaging. There were 17 SCDS-affected ears and 13 unaffected ears. In nine (53%) of the SCDS-affected ears surgical repair was indicated, and SCD was confirmed in each. oVEMPs were recorded in response to ACS using 500 Hz tone bursts or clicks. oVEMP amplitudes evoked by 100 stimuli (standard protocol) were compared with experimental protocols with only 40 or 20 stimuli.

Results: In all three protocols, oVEMP amplitudes in SCDS-affected ears were significantly higher than in the unaffected ears (p < 0.001). 500 Hz tone bursts evoked oVEMPs with excellent (>90%) sensitivity and specificity in each of the three protocols. However, in the unaffected ears, lowering to 20 stimuli reduced the detection of oVEMP responses in some ears. Following surgical repair, oVEMPs normalized in each of the protocols.

Conclusion: In oVEMP testing using ACS for SCDS, reducing the number of trials from 100 to 40 stimuli results in a more tolerable and theoretically safer test without compromising its effectiveness for the diagnosis of SCDS. Reducing to 20 stimuli may degrade specificity with clicks.

Zúñiga, M. G., Hügl, S., Engst, B. G., Lenarz, T., & Rau, T. S. (2021). The effect of ultra-slow velocities on insertion forces: A study using a highly flexible straight electrode array. Otology & Neurotology, 42(8), 1013-1021. https://doi.org/10.1097/MAO.0000000000003148

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Objective: The present study sought to 1) characterize insertion forces resulting from a flexible straight electrode array (EA) inserted at slow and ultra-slow insertion velocities, and 2) evaluate if ultra-slow velocities decrease insertion forces independent of other variables.

Background: Low insertion forces are desirable in cochlear implant (CI) surgery to reduce trauma and preserve hearing. Recently, ultra-slow insertion velocities (lower than manually feasible) have been shown to produce significantly lower insertion forces using other EAs.

Methods: Five flexible straight EAs were used to record insertion forces into an inelastic artificial scala tympani model. Eleven trial recordings were performed for each EA at five predetermined automated, continuous insertion velocities ranging from 0.03 to 1.6 mm/s.

Results: An ultra-slow insertion velocity of 0.03 mm/s resulted in a median insertion force of 0.010 N at 20 mm of insertion depth, and 0.026 N at 24.3 mm—the final insertion depth. These forces represent only 24 to 29% of those measured using 1.6 mm/s. After controlling for insertion depth of the EA into the artificial scala tympani model and trial insertion number, decreasing the insertion velocity from 0.4 to 0.03 mm/s resulted in a 50% decrease in the insertion forces.

Conclusion: Using the tested EA ultra-slow velocities can decrease insertion forces, independent of variables like insertion depth. Our results suggest ultra-slow velocities can reduce insertion forces at least 60%, compared with humanly feasible continuous velocities (≥0.9 mm/s).

Engst, B. G., Gschwend, T., & Sternberg, S. (2020). Die Besetzung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts: Ein Spiegelbild gesellschaftlicher Präferenzen? Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 61(1), 39-60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-019-00204-7

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Which candidates do the German public want to be judges of the Federal Constitutional Court? Constitutional courts require public support. This support is also the result of the legitimacy of the politically elected judges. We argue that political actors are able to define the (1) judicial and (2) political–ideological leaning of the court through (non-)institutionalized selection criteria. Candidates possess features from both dimensions. Using a discrete choice experiment, we identify the features that are preferred by the public. We show the role of a respondent’s partisan leaning in evaluating his/her candidate and compare the “ideal judge” with currently serving judges and candidates in relation to the election of Stephan Harbarth. The findings expand our understanding of the legitimacy of the courts.

Clark, T. S., Engst, B. G., & Staton, J. K. (2018). Estimating the effect of leisure on judicial performance. Journal of Legal Studies, 47(2), 349-390. https://doi.org/10.1086/699150

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Past research suggests that natural preferences for leisure influence the ways in which federal judges carry out their work. We consider the extent to which incentives for leisure reduce the speed with which judges work and the quality of their output. We take advantage of a natural experiment caused by an annual sporting event that creates differential distractions across judges. Using a difference-in-differences design, among federal courts of appeals judges we show that a judge’s alma mater’s participation in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Men’s Basketball Tournament both slows the rate at which opinions are drafted and ultimately undermines the opinions’ quality, even accounting for the additional time judges spend writing them. The findings suggest that incentives for leisure influence important normative concerns for swift and high-quality justice.

Engst, B. G., Gschwend, T., Schaks, N., Sternberg, S., & Wittig, C. (2017). Zum Einfluss der Parteinähe auf das Abstimmungsverhalten der Bundesverfassungsrichter: Eine quantitative Untersuchung. JuristenZeitung, 72(17), 816-826. https://doi.org/10.1628/002268817X15004527599072

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The extent to which the partisan affiliations of individual judges of the Federal Constitutional Court influence the Court’s decisions has long been a subject of debate, or perhaps more accurately, speculation, within legal scholarship. Owing to the absence of methodological tools for systematically measuring such effects, legal scholars have been unable to assess this question empirically. This article therefore draws on quantitative social scientific methods to investigate, for a defined period, the influence of partisan affiliation on the voting behavior of judges of the Federal Constitutional Court and its potential consequences for legal outcomes.

Sternberg, S., Gschwend, T., Wittig, C., & Engst, B. G. (2015). Zum Einfluss der öffentlichen Meinung auf Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts: Eine Analyse von abstrakten Normenkontrollen sowie Bund-Länder-Streitigkeiten 1974-2010. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 56(4), 570-598. https://doi.org/10.5771/0032-3470-2015-4-570

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Is the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) truly, as is frequently asserted, a largely independent actor within the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany? We provide the first systematic assessment of the extent to which public opinion influences the Court’s decisions. Our evidence is drawn from an analysis of constitutional review proceedings (abstrakte Normenkontrollen) and federal-state disputes (Bund–Länder-Streitigkeiten) between 1974 and 2010. We show that the greater the public support for the policy positions advanced by the opposition, the more likely the Court is to rule in the opposition’s favor. We conclude by discussing two potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. While the Court does not mechanically follow majority opinion, it appears to consider the public acceptability of its decisions as an important source of institutional legitimacy.

Chapters in edited volumes

Engst, B. G., & Gschwend, T. (2024). Observational databases. In L. Epstein, G. Grendstad, U. Sadl, & K. Weinshall (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative judicial behavior. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192898579.013.12

Engst, B. G., & Hönnige, C. (2018). Modern times? Das Internet vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht. In A. Busch, Y. Breindl, & T. Jakobi (Eds.), Netzpolitik: Ein einführender Überblick (pp. 163-187). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-02033-0_8

Engst, B. G. (2017). Die vierte Gesetzeslesung: Verfassungsgerichte des deutsch-österreichischen Modells als Vetospieler. In V. Frick, O. Lembcke, & R. Lhotta (Eds.), Politik und Recht: Umrisse eines politikwissenschaftlichen Forschungsfeldes (pp. 281-301). Nomos. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845280349-281

Outreach

Sohnius, M.-L., Engst, B. G., & Gschwend, T. (2020). Kontinuität am Bundesverfassungsgericht? Wie die Öffentlichkeit Voßkuhles und Masings Nachfolger bewertet. RechtsEmpirie Blog. https://doi.org/10.25527/re.2020.04

Engst, B. G., Gschwend, T., & Hönnige, C. (2016). Zum Dilemma des Verfassungsgerichtszugangs kleiner Oppositionsparteien: Was sagen eigentlich die Zahlen? Verfassungsblog. https://doi.org/10.17176/20160126-172304