Interactions between the Brazilian Supreme Court and the National Industry Union in Corporative Political Disputes

One of the main gaps in Brazilian political system literature is the absence of a pluralist approach to the interest groups system. All studies were restricted to an analytical model based on the principle that Brazil adopts a interest group system characterized by the State corporatism (or authoritarian corporatism) approach, in which interest groups and lobby strategies, in plural sense, mean an oxymoron. However, in recent studies, can be seen alternative approaches that consider constitutional design transformations dealing with the concept of a Brazilian hybrid interest group system. In fact, Diniz & Boschi (2004), Mancuso (2007) and Santos (2011) show the existence of a strong influence of interest groups in Brazilian political system, when analyzing industrial interests lobbying, but such approaches did focus only to executive and/or legislative branches. This research goes forward to the strengthening of pluralist perspective introducing evidences of a demand for industrial interest dispute resolution in Brazilian Supreme Court environment. The paper analyses constitutional actions (ADINs) suited by the National Industry Union (CNI), relating the judicial claims with the industrial legislative agenda. In other words, seeks to empirically estimate to what extent the industrial lobby represents a rent-seeking behavior and reflects the judicialization of political disputes.

http://ipsa.org/sites/default/files/ipsa-events/madrid2012/papers/paper-17374-2012-06-15-1722.pdf