Pontos de Divergência

Executive Summary

Problem and purpose

The dissertation investigates how Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) justices divide in their decisions and which factors help explain these divisions. Its starting point is that, although the STF became a central actor in Brazilian politics after 1988, systematic evidence about the individual behavior of justices was still limited.

Approach and data

The work uses ideal point estimation to spatially represent similarities and disagreements among justices based on their votes. It also reviews the literature on constitutional review, judicialization of politics, presidential appointments and judicial behavior, and uses simulations to evaluate estimation strategies for the study of the Court.

Main findings

The results indicate that variables associated with attitudinal models, such as the party of the president who appointed each justice, ideology and judicial philosophy, help explain alignments and disagreements on the Court. Professional trajectories are also considered, but appear to have less explanatory power than variables connected to political and institutional orientations.

Contribution

The dissertation brings quantitative tools from political behavior research into the study of the STF, offering a way to observe patterns of alignment among justices beyond case-by-case description.