The Judiciary in and amid Crisis: Beyond Political Polarization in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (2019–2026)

Abstract

This article analyzes the decision-making behavior of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) between 2019 and 2026, examining its assertiveness, internal cohesion, and coalition formation under two governments with distinct political orientations. The study tests whether Brazil’s political polarization is reproduced in the Court’s behavior and whether changes occurred between the Bolsonaro and Lula 3 administrations. To this end, it uses a database of approximately 750 plenary cases, constructed from the Court’s data services, with exploratory and descriptive analyses of decisions, dissenting votes, unanimity, and patterns of alignment among justices. The results show that 69% of final decisions in direct actions of unconstitutionality (ADI), claims of noncompliance with a fundamental precept (ADPF), and actions for failure to legislate (ADO) were wholly or partially counter-majoritarian, with no statistically distinguishable temporal variation; unanimity increased from 17% to 35%; and dissenting votes did not form stable partisan blocs. The findings indicate that external political polarization is not directly reproduced as judicial polarization.