Braz. political sci. rev.2025;19(3):e0001.

ISSUE Cover

On Decision-Making and Arbitrariness in Politics

Ivo Coser , Roberta Soromenho Nicolete

DOI: 10.1590/1981-3821202500030001

In Felipe Freller’s work (2021) titled ‘Quando É Preciso Decidir’ (When Decisions Must Be Made), the focus is on exploring the complexities involved in decision-making in the context of modern democracy: How to make decisions, if, at times, the executive is faced with situations that were not anticipated by the legislative? How to make decisions when popular sentiment does not support the preservation of an egalitarian regime, and citizens lean toward calls for a reaction? And when the act of making a decision cannot be grounded in any established principle or law? In short, these questions concern the moment when, in the absence of immutable principles or given unique political circumstances, decision-making becomes an unavoidable action.

The matter of arbitrariness takes on a political dimension when we distinguish a decision from the mere whims of a leader or when we move away from the negative connotation of arbitration as a form of regulation emanating from an absolute authority or outside the bounds of the law. Indeed, it is essential to highlight that the decision-making moment lies at the heart of democracies. In this regime, the importance of the law is reaffirmed, unlike in regimes where, for example, the exclusive will of the monarch is considered equivalent to a superior rationale or an inviolable divine norm. If the problem is indeed political, as argued by , arbitrariness cannot simply be rejected. Therefore, this work contributes to advancing the debate within the realm of political thought by demonstrating that arbitrariness is a usual problem of the political order, one that should not be disregarded as illegitimate or anti-political.

[…]