Courts, politics and law in Brazil. trends and issues for political science

Abstract

The protagonism of courts and other judicial institutions, changes in the working methods of jurists and the processes of mobilization of law are an unavoidable part of contemporary politics. The changes were welcomed as the awakening of the “third giant” or as the emergence of a new era of representative institutions, in which there would be a positive dynamic for the scope and effectiveness of rights in constitutional democracies. Others, more skeptical, pointed to the corporate interests of jurists, or their association with political and social forces as the explanatory basis for the changes. But, as research has pointed out, the process has an undeniable empirical variety, in different national contexts, within each State, in different domains, over time or depending on the configurations of forces placed in specific conjunctures. As a result, the theoretical and methodological bases for political science research on the courts, jurists and the law remain dispersed, fluid and contested, which is very clearly presented in the works in the area about our country. Mediações magazine has articles that contribute in this domain, either with theoretical-methodological discussions or with empirical research on institutions, agents and judicial practices in Brazil or in a comparative perspective.