Structural processes and abstract judicial review: the construction of state capacities and the Supremo Tribunal Federal.
Structural processes. Constitutional actions. State capacities.
In recent years, the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) has undertaken a series of cases of a structural nature within the scope of abstract judicial review. One of the intended objectives in these cases is the restructure of state institutions to overcome a state of incapacity to act, considered as a cause of a situation of widespread violation of fundamental rights. The research aimed to observe the handling of these structural processes by the Court, from the perspective of enhancing state bureaucracy, addressing the phenomenon through the concept of state capacities. Methodologically, to establish an understanding of the Court's behavior in these processes, focusing on the practices adopted within the framework of improving the aptitude of state bureaucracy to produce public policies, the research adopted the constructivist approach of Grounded Theory (GT). Through the analysis of the selected empirical material, consisting of judicial pronouncements of the STF in these cases, the study was able to describe three types of strategies adopted by the Court: procedural, promoting the construction of state capacities, and discursive. Moreover, the research concluded that the behavior assumed by the STF in these actions is predominantly that of an institutional coordinator, acting as a facilitator of efforts by various state bodies and entities to carry out various stages of the public policy cycle.