Corruption and Brazilian Politics
In the past two weekends, two different events took place to discuss the role of corruption in Brazilian politics. The Centers for Latin American Studies at University of Arizona (UA) and at Michigan State University (MSU) organized round-tables to discuss how corruption still plays a central role in Brazilian politics and how Brazilian political institutions may create incentives for corruption. In MSU, the focus of the event was on political corruption in general, with some emphasis on the Brazilian case. Brian Crisp, Lucio Renno, Timothy Power, Carlos Pereira and Claudio Couto delivered papers ranging from the macro-determinants of corruption to the details of the current Brazilian scandal and how it is linked to the rules of the electoral system, to campaign finance and to strategies of coalition management in multiparty systems. In the University of Arizona the emphasis was more on the challenges posed to the strengthening of democracy in Brazil by corruption. The goal of this round-table was to discuss the progress of and challenges to Brazilian democracy especially in face of the current crisis. Mauro Porto talked about the role the media plays in the Brazilian political system and how it participated in the current scandal. Ben Goldfranck evaluated the impact of the political crisis on the Workers’ Party and Carlos Pereira discussed how legislative/executive relations in coalitional presidentialism created incentives for the existence of the Mensalao. All in all, both events generated an interesting debate about the causes and consequence of corruption in new democratic regimes.