The objective of this essay is to analyze the recent changes in judicial decisions within the literature on judicial behavior in Latin America. Here is emphasized that the judicial decisions are no longer understood as a univocal act that favors certain actors. Now they are conceived as a cognitive process, generated within a framework of formal and informal institutions. This process implies recognizing that the judge is not only a political actor. Judges’ vision of legal problems is conditioned by their training, professional career and socialization processes.