Between Resistance and Reproduction: The Brazilian Supreme Court Under Authoritarian Pressure

Abstract For upholding evidence-based policymaking during the COVID-19 crisis and prosecuting antidemocratic actors, the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) has been widely portrayed as a bulwark of democracy. This article challenges this celebratory narrative by examining the Court’s jurisprudence through the lens of fundamental rights. It argues that the STF’s democratic protagonism coexists with a pattern of ambivalent adjudication in which boldness in defending institutional order is coupled with caution and avoidance in areas such as labor rights, gender equality, and reproductive rights. The article shows how these strategies produce hybrid rulings that advance democratic goals while limiting their transformative reach, often with disproportionate effects on marginalized groups. The analysis shifts the focus from the role of courts as arbiters of institutional conflict to their role in shaping the distributive and substantive dimensions of democracy. It demonstrates that judicial responses to authoritarianism are structured not only by external political pressures but also by internal constraints and longer-standing commitments to market-oriented and exclusionary legal frameworks. The article advances the concept of selective constitutionalism to capture this dual dynamic, arguing that courts may simultaneously resist authoritarian threats while reproducing structural inequalities. The Brazilian case offers insights into how courts operate in contexts of democratic erosion, showing that the preservation of democracy may coexist with, and sometimes depend on, the containment of substantive equality.