Radicalização da democracia digital e legitimidade democrática da constituição : análise das decisões do Supremo Tribunal Federal a partir da teoria do constitucionalismo democrático de Post e Siegel.

Abstract

Considering the escalation and intensification of democratic radicalization arising from the digital landscape, characterized by a context of political hyperpolarization on digital platforms and influenced by “echo chambers” and disinformation processes, it becomes pertinent to examine theories that construct an operative constitutionalism even in situations of conflict. In this sense, the theory of “Democratic Constitutionalism” (Robert Post and Reva Siegel, both professors at Yale University) is taken as a parameter to guide the key mechanisms of jurisdictional openness and institutional dialogues, which are capable of facilitating and channeling the arguments of democratic actors through a coordination led by Constitutional Jurisdiction. In light of this context, the central problem is to analyze whether the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, based on the collegiate decisions pronounced during the year 2023, involving (in)constitutional omissions adopted in its rulings and/or judgments the key mechanisms of interpretative openness and institutional dialogues, in order to fortify the democratic legitimacy of the Constitution through an interactive-dialogic process with the democratic actors, in the form proposed by “Democratic Constitutionalism”. The research employs a deductive approach, utilizing doctrinal and jurisprudential investigation. The procedural methods include historical, monographic, and analytical approaches. Additionally, it utilizes bibliographic research techniques, based on direct and indirect documentation. The research is linked to the “Contemporary Constitutionalism” Research Line and the “Social Rights and Public Policies” Concentration Area of the Stricto Sensu Postgraduate Program in Law at the University of Santa Cruz do Sul, and also to the research of the supervising professor, Doctor Mônia Clarissa Hennig Leal, considering its aim to examine the decisions of the Brazilian Supreme Court in the context of the radicalization of digital democracy (a phenomenon of constitutional significance), through the lens of the theory of the “Democratic Constitutionalism”. In conclusion, based on the nine decisions analyzed, the spirit of the “Yale Theory” was found to wander through the rulings and judgments, albeit implicitly, considering the role of the Brazilian Supreme Court role of coordinating the interactive dialogical process with and between the democratic actors (based on the enabling factors intrinsic to each key mechanism taken as a parameter), reinforcing the democratic legitimacy of the Constitution, a fruitful measure in contexts of democratic radicalization.