Judicialization of politics in context(s): new elements for a theoretical map

Abstract

This paper has two goals. First, in dialogue with scholarly efforts to explain variations  in the intensity of the Brazilian Supreme Court’s role in the political process,  we propose a theoretical map that can account, in a more systematic fashion, for  the different ways and mechanisms by which judicialization can take place. Second,  we offer a typology of varieties of judicialization of politics that combines different  mechanisms for accessing the court’s jurisdiction, and features of the court’s internal  decision-making process. At one side of the spectrum, judicialization as a phenomenon  would result from a combination of two collective decisions – a collective  actor (such as a political party) triggering a collective decision by the STF. At the  other side, it would result from a combination of two sets of individual decisions –  an individual politician, for example, obtaining a favorable ruling or injunction by a  single STF justice. Within this framework, we exemplify and discuss four understudied  dimensions of the judicialization of politics: mechanisms of access to the STF  beyond abstract review lawsuits (ADIs); appeals to the STF by individual politicians;  appeals to the STF by members of the ruling coalition, which highlight the relevance  of contingent political dynamics in judicialization strategies; the individual  judicial powers and their implications for the political process.