Judicial diplomacy of the German Federal Constitutional Court: bilateral court meetings as a novel data source to assess transnational communication of constitutional courts

Judicial diplomacy describes the courts’ efforts to promote liberal democracy and protect their institutional authority. Bilateral court meetings are essential for judicial diplomacy, encompassing jurisprudential (e.g., discussion of case law) and aims of strategic (e.g., maximising influence). This study presents a novel approach to assess such meetings. It analyses the German Federal Constitutional Court meeting reports between 1998–2019, using content and semantic network analysis. The content analysis shows that court meetings focus on jurisprudential aspects; however, strategic considerations also play a role in discussions with interlocutors from emerging democracies. These findings are substantiated by the semantic network analysis, which discloses that recent case law, Europeanisation, and globalisation are the main issues discussed. Hence, this study presents an analysis of a novel data source. Further, it contributes to judicial politics research as transnational court meetings could be a missing link to understand legal citation networks. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version of this article (10.1007/s12286-021-00499-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.