Institutions, ju dicial decision andjegal thought analysis

the north american debate

Abstract

This essay presents different approaches of Political Science and Sociology of Law about judi­cial decisions in the North American Supreme Court. Preliminarily it is reported the critique of the juridical formalism conceived by the Legal Realism Theory starting from the 20'h cen­tury. After that the Pluralist, the Attitudinal and the Strategic Interaction models formulated all after the 40’s are discussed. In another moment this essay presents institutional approach­es that adopt the historical and sociological perspectives to treat the relations among the Supreme Court decisions, the political orientation of the dominant alliance and the process of legal mobilization. These works embodied the constitutional thought and the techniques of decision-making to the political analysis of the Supreme Court decisions. This review intends to make a prime theoretical balance to the concepts and instruments of constitution­al thought analysis elaborated by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF - Superior Tribunal Federal) in the 1990’s.