Why do national jurists commit what appears to be blatant breaches of EU law even when they intend to comply? Instead of viewing such incidents as mere errors, I suggest one possible way of reconstructing them as meaningful social action. Drawing on Bourdieusian sociology I import the concept of allodoxia as a framework to understand the transplant of ideas about EU law into the national legal field. Allodoxia helps to unpack the structural tension that occurs between the habitual dispositions of the national jurists and the increased pressure from EU. Adding to this, I also use the notion of ontological primacy to conceptualise the symbolic dominance asserted by EU law over the worldview of national jurists, a dominance which obscures a proper understanding of the latter’s actions. I illustrate the argument with a case study of one such blatant ‘error’, when prominent Danish jurists in the late 1980s drafted and defended a buy-Danish clause in the tender materials for a major infrastructure project, the bridge over the strait of Storebælt. By insisting on the ontological parity of European EU law and national EU law respectively, and by using allodoxia as an analytical framework, we can better understand misapplication of law beyond the tradition error-paradigm, adding to our understanding of national reception of EU law. In a broader context, the Article aims to continue and broaden the introduction of a Bourdieusian approach to EU legal scholarship, in particular by drawing attention to the functioning of EU law within Member States.

In this Article, I show how Danish reception of EC/EU law has been shaped by Nordic law and the connections between Danish and other Nordic jurists in a triangular system of social arenas. The purpose is to show in a concrete case that understanding the history of EU law in Member States requires us to engage increasingly with its connections to transnational legal orders and social structures that are older and different to the EU. In this, I aim to contribute to a history and sociology of EU law that puts its contingency at the forefront and removes EU from the main stage. The Article is based on the archives of the Nordic Jurist Meetings, a triennial conference of Nordic jurists dating back 150 years. I contextualise the debates with contemporary developments in the reception of EC/EU law within Denmark. I argue that Nordic law has played a special role in the history of EC/EU law in Denmark, as a source of reciprocal legitimation between the legal elites of the five Nordic countries. Whereas the Danish legal elite first believed in synergy between Nordic and EC law, the increased use of EU law to challenge this very elite during the 1990s onwards made them see Nordic law as in a principled, values-based opposition to European law. I argue that engagement in Nordic law has shaped Danish jurists’ perception of EU law, just as it has been mobilised in a defence of the Danish legal order against EU law.

This article explores how the political ideal of data interacts with the legal entitlement of autonomy in the care of pregnant people guided by feminist theory and critical approaches to data. Using Scandinavian legislation and administrative practice, it analyses how the presence or absence of data, namely scientific evidence, interacts with pregnant people’s legal autonomy in healthcare. Data –particularly scientific evidence - is shown as something that is not neutral but open to interpretation and misappropriation. First, administrative complaints illustrate that not only a lack of scientific studies on pregnant people but also patriarchal attitudes have implications for care. Second, Scandinavian legislation authorizes the involuntary detention of pregnant drug users despite an absence of evidence supporting such drastic actions. Third, complaints bodies are found to frame injury to pregnant bodies as a natural consequence of birth, despite clear evidence as to the duties of healthcare professionals in preventing harm. A relational approach that sees the pregnant body and fetus as integrated though quintessentially unequal is needed. Evidence is not the only answer; an approach that recognizes the dignity of pregnant people must be central. This requires eliminating coercion, recognizing the pregnant patient as the decision maker in healthcare choices and prizing the birthing patient’s voice as a valuable data source.