Fabio de Sa e Silva is Associate Professor of International Studies and Wick Cary Professor of Brazilian Studies at the University of Oklahoma, where he co-directs the Center for Brazil Studies. Trained in law and the social sciences, he studies the relationship between law, political power, and democracy, with a focus on Brazil and comparative perspectives.
His recent work examines how legal institutions and arguments can both enable and resist democratic backsliding. He is a co-convener of the international Project on Autocratic Legalism and lead editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook on Autocratic Legalism (2027). His next major project explores how competing understandings of lawful authority emerged and were contested during Brazil’s recent democratic crisis. A related line of research considers the role of lawyers, legal education, and professional governance in sustaining the rule of law.
Fabio’s scholarship draws on his experience in Brazilian public institutions, including the Ministry of Justice and the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea). At OU, he teaches courses on law, development, and global affairs and helps build connections between scholars and institutions in Brazil and the United States. He is an affiliated fellow of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession and president of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA).
Recent and representative publications:
Estado de direito e populismo autoritário: Erosão e resistência institucional no Brasil (2018–2022). São Paulo: FGV University Press. Best Book in Applied Social Sciences, Brazilian Association of University Presses (ABEU), 2024.
Good bye, liberal legal democracy! Law & Social Inquiry, 57(1), 292–313.
Autocratic legalism 2.0: Preliminary insights from a global collaborative research project. VRÜ/World Comparative Law, 55(4), 419–440. Best article in the journal (2022).
Relational legal consciousness and anticorruption: Lava Jato, social media interactions, and the co-production of law’s detraction in Brazil (2017–2019). Law & Society Review, 56(3), 344–368. LSA’s Article Prize for exceptional scholarship in socio-legal studies (2023).
Law and illiberalism: A sociolegal review and research agenda. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 18, 193–209.
