POLITICAL RECRUITMENT AT THE BRAZILIAN COURT OF AUDITORS: A PROSOPOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THEE NOMINEES (1990–2022)

Abstract

This article analyzes the appointment process of the ministers of the Federal Court of Accounts of Brazil (Tribunal de Contas da União – TCU) between 1990 and 2022, focusing on the tension between technical and political criteria that shape the recruitment of institutional elites in Brazil. The central objective is to investigate to what extent previous political experience influences the probability of appointment to the detriment of technical profiles. The study employs a deductive method, supported by a literature review on elites and political recruitment, and applies prosopographical procedures to collect and systematize primary and secondary data on the trajectories of the twenty ministers appointed in the period. The analysis reveals that, although the 1988 Constitution establishes positions for auditors and members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Accounts, ensuring some technical representation, most appointments were guided by political criteria: 70% of the nominations were made by the National Congress, of which 85.7% of ministers were affiliated with political parties at the time of appointment, and 78.6% were linked to the governing coalition. In this context, technical capital operates as a formal requirement of legitimacy, but not as a decisive criterion. The study concludes that the TCU, although formally designed as a technical oversight body, in practice performs a process of political recruitment of its ministers, reproducing parliamentary and governmental elites under the guise of legal formalism.