Democratization and state reform: the institutional development of the courts of accounts in recent Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the transformations of Brazilian courts of account since the democratization process occurred in the 1980s. The theoretical perspective of institutional development allows us to consider the long-term processes of political change, stressing not only the resistance of institutional and social actors, the situation of path dependence, but also the critical junctures. In this article, the changes brought by the 1988 Constitution in the courts of accounts structure were neutralized by the veto of powerful actors. Only a new critical juncture of the 2000 Fiscal Responsibility Law could alter the political and institutional dynamics and put into practice new changes in these institutions.