TAYLOR, Matthew M <br/><br/>
Citizens against the state :  the riddle of high impact, low functionality courts in Brazil 

 - São Paulo :  Editora 34,  out./dez. 2005 
<br/><br/> The Brazilian federal judiciary offers an interesting riddle to scholars of judicial politics and policy change. While the courts have played a major policy role over the past two decades, constraining and altering federal policy across a range of subjects, the court system has simultaneously been labeled "dysfunctional." This paper investigates this riddle: a system plagued by major systemic flaws in its day-to-day operations, which nonetheless still manages to exert a powerful influence on public policy in Brazil. I adopt a new institutional perspective, focusing on how the institutional and normative structure within which judges and other legal actors operate affects policy outcomes