Scholars in EU studies have developed diverse justifications for explaining why national judges cooperate with the Court of Justice of the European Union. In this regard, judicial empowerment theories have stressed the strategic importance of cooperation for empowering national courts vis‐a‐vis high courts and political actors. Nevertheless, these explanations have been restricted to the use of preliminary references by lower courts. This contribution expands the explanatory power of these approaches by exploring other potential scenarios and instruments that national judges can use to challenge the position of their governments and judicial superiors, for example, by emphasising the importance of CJEU precedent for their strategic behaviour. By offering new data collected from case‐law and surveys, this article offers a more systematic assessment of the relevance of cooperation for national judges to reinforce their authority against other institutions. The findings call for a revision of the traditional understanding of judicial empowerment theories

中文翻译：

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扩大司法授权：国家法院与欧洲法院合作的政治决定因素

欧盟研究学者提出了各种理由来解释国家法官为何与欧盟法院合作。在这方面，司法赋权理论强调了合作对增强国家法院与高等法院和政治行为者权力的战略重要性。然而，这些解释仅限于下级法院使用初步参考。这一贡献扩展了这些方法的解释力，探索了国家法官可以用来挑战其政府和司法上级立场的其他潜在情景和工具，例如，通过强调欧洲法院判例对其战略行为的重要性。通过提供从判例法和调查中收集的新数据，本文更系统地评估了合作对国家法官加强其对其他机构的权威的相关性。调查结果呼吁修正对司法赋权理论的传统理解