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This review essay analyses two significant recent contributions to the debate over the reasoning of the Court of Justice (CJ). These contributions highlight the impossibility of a wholly scientific and deductive approach to attributing "correct "outcomes to the Court's case-law. At the same time, their analysis adds significant findings for the debate over the Court's possible "activist" or political role. Following from these contributions, this essay makes two arguments: firstly, that the inability of the Court to anchor its reasoning solely in a deductive form of legal reasoning should encourage the CJ to engage in a more advanced "constitutional dialogue" with the EU's political institutions; and secondly, that truly understanding the Court's reasoning involves a closer analysis of the institutional and personal dynamics influencing Court decisions. Understanding European judicial reasoning may require a closer look at the social and political "as well as doctrinal" context within which European judges act.
