The Corruption Debates: Left vs. Right—and Does it Matter—in the Americas 9781626379602

Table of contents :
Contents
Tables and Figures
Preface
1 Ideology and the Corruption Debates
2 Parsing the Literature
3 Political Rhetoric in the Americas
4 Anticorruption Policies Left and Right
5 Assessing Policy Outcomes
6 The Power Factor: An Alternative Hypothesis
7 The Corruption Dilemmas
Methodological Appendix
References
Index
About the Book

Citation preview

THE

CORRUPTION DEBATES

THE

CORRUPTION DEBATES Left vs. Right— and Does It Matter— in the Americas Stephen D. Morris

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2021 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Suite 314, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB www.eurospanbookstore.com/rienner

© 2021 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Morris, Stephen D., 1957– author. Title: The corruption debates : left vs. right—and does it matter—in the Americas / Stephen D. Morris. Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Explores left vs. right anticorruption ideologies, policies, and outcomes in the Americas”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021015781 (print) | LCCN 2021015782 (ebook) | ISBN 9781626379565 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781626379602 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Political corruption—America—Prevention. | Right and left (Political science)—America. | America—Politics and government. Classification: LCC JF1081 .M67 2021 (print) | LCC JF1081 (ebook) | DDC 364.1/323097—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015781 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015782

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

To all those who dedicate their lives to fighting corruption Y al amor de mi vida, Celina

If we define the rule of law in such a way as to exclude the disproportionate influence of organized interests on the making, interpreting, and applying of law, we have identified a system that has never existed and can never exist. —Stephen Holmes (2003, 22) The British learned late in the eighteenth century that “influence” is nothing but a euphemism for “corruption,” but contemporary political science chose to ignore this lesson. —Adam Przeworski (2010, 97)

Contents

List of Tables and Figures Preface

xi xiii

2 Parsing the Literature

21

4 Anticorruption Policies Left and Right

75

1 Ideology and the Corruption Debates 3 Political Rhetoric in the Americas

1

49

5 Assessing Policy Outcomes

121

7 The Corruption Dilemmas

197

6 The Power Factor: An Alternative Hypothesis Methodological Appendix

169 207

References Index About the Book

215 243 251

ix

Tables and Figures

Tables

2.1 Ideological Alignment of Corruption/ Anticorruption in the Literature 4.1 Governments Studied 5.1 Presidential Terms and Ideological Alignments 5.2 Argentina 5.3 Brazil 5.4 Canada 5.5 Chile 5.6 Ecuador 5.7 El Salvador 5.8 Guatemala 5.9 Honduras 5.10 Mexico 5.11 Panama 5.12 Paraguay 5.13 Peru 5.14 The United States 5.15 Summary of Within-Country Assessments 5.16 Left-Right Means 5.17 Comparisons of Moderate and Radical Left

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43 77 128 132 134 136 138 140 142 144 146 149 150 152 154 156 158 160 166

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Tables and Figures

Figures

5.1 CPI in Argentina, 2006–2019 5.2 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Argentina, 2005–2018 5.3 CPI in Brazil, 2006–2019 5.4 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Brazil, 2005–2018 5.5 CPI in Canada, 2006–2019 5.6 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Canada, 2005–2018 5.7 CPI in Chile, 2006–2019 5.8 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Chile, 2005–2018 5.9 CPI in Ecuador, 2006–2019 5.10 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Ecuador, 2006–2018 5.11 CPI in El Salvador, 2006–2019 5.12 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption El Salvador, 2005–2018 5.13 CPI in Guatemala, 2006–2019 5.14 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Guatemala, 2005–2018 5.15 CPI in Honduras, 2006–2019 5.16 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Honduras, 2005–2018 5.17 CPI in Mexico, 2006–2019 5.18 CPI in Panama, 2006–2019 5.19 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Panama, 2005–2018 5.20 CPI in Paraguay, 2006–2019 5.21 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Paraguay, 2005–2018 5.22 CPI in Peru, 2006–2019 5.23 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption Peru, 2005–2018 5.24 CPI in the United States, 2006–2019 5.25 Rule of Law and Control of Corruption the United States, 2005–2018 5.26 CPI, 2006–2019 5.27 Integrity Indicators, 2006–2018 5.28 Moderate vs. Radical Left

in in in in in in in in in in in in

133 133 135 135 137 137 139

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157 161 163 165

Preface

CURSED EARLY ON IN MY CAREER BY AN INTENSE FAScination and insatiable inquietud about corruption, I have spent more than three decades studying, speaking, teaching, writing, and incessantly thinking about the topic. Most of my writing and speaking have concentrated on Mexico, including a late-twentieth-century study that focused on the then rarely addressed topic of corruption in Mexico. Over the years, when I was addressing Mexican audiences someone would invariably ask about corruption in my native country, the United States. I politely clarified that my interest in corruption in Mexico should not be construed to suggest that the United States did not suffer corruption, but that corruption in the United States was “different” than in Mexico. I also noted a general lack of interest in what I then considered “boring” US politics, especially compared to the Mexican variety. But while my research concentrated on Mexico, much of my teaching on corruption over these years—mainly at US-based institutions—focused more broadly on theory, anticorruption reforms, and, more specifically, the United States. This implanted a natural proclivity to compare corruption in these two countries that differed in rather fundamental ways. Two things further stirred my interest in US corruption and those differences I would allude to during questions. The first was my realization, based on polling data from the mid-2010s, that the US public actually considered corruption as much, if not more, of a problem in their country as Mexicans did in theirs. This finding stood in stark contrast to the assessments of most expert-based polls, such as Transparency International’s xiii

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Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and mainstream corruption literature. The second was the stupefying 2016 election of Donald Trump, who not only campaigned on an anticorruption platform, tapping into a well of popular discontent, but proceeded to orchestrate what many observers saw as the most corrupt administration in years. The familial ties to and analytical eyes on Mexico and the United States sensitized me then to the differences between the distinct forms and patterns of corruption in the two countries; the similarities in the views of the two publics, despite dissimilar views among experts (Morris 2018); and the somewhat fragmented literature. My interest in the two ratcheted up even more as a result of the odd parallels behind the elections of Trump in the United States and Andrés Manuel López Obrador two years later and their respective anticorruption postures and policies. During the campaigns, both candidates rode the wave of popular frustration and anger over systemic corruption, promising to prioritize the fight against it. But the parallels ended there. Reflecting perhaps their ideological and stylistic differences, their takes on corruption, their understanding of it, and their proposed and actual solutions seemed fundamentally at odds. Even beyond the tendencies of the two administrations, I also saw anticorruption organizations and personalities, particularly in Mexico, realign politically following the election, seemingly along a left/right axis. Such differences forged questions and fueled the curiosity that drove my research journey. Beyond mere academic curiosity, however, the parallels also personally triggered deep-seated feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity. Politically, I supported one of these two leaders and opposed the other. But I harbored a sense of ambivalence—a sense that perhaps I was selectively understanding and accepting the arguments of my fellow travelers, and dismissing those of my opponents, rather than objectively understanding corruption and the potential effectiveness of the various anticorruption strategies the two leaders proposed or proceeded to put in motion. To be sure, both leaders have their critics, with analyses pointing to serious problems in their anticorruption initiatives and predictions of failure. Is it possible that both leaders, despite promises to the contrary, are actually promoting corruption rather than curbing it, as some critics claim? Did Trump, despite my understanding and those of many others, truly fight corruption, as he and his supporters insist? In Mexico I saw organizations that fought against corruption under the prior government almost overnight become staunch critics of a new government firmly committed to fighting corruption. Baffled a bit naively by how people committed to anticorruption could possibly be on separate sides of the corruption issue, I struggled to understand the

Preface

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extent to which such political distance stems from different interpretations of corruption and anticorruption or simply represents normal partisan and ideological divisions. In the case of Mexico, where my experience and friendships run deep, there is also a historical parallel that jarred memories and ambiguities. Though the 2018 election was historic and López Obrador is the first leftist candidate to be (recognized as) the victor, he is not the first Mexican president to assail corruption or promote anticorruption reforms. In fact, as I argued back in the late twentieth century (Morris 1991), the rhetorical and political use of anticorruption to rejuvenate support for the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), differentiate the new PRI-led administration from the prior one, and consolidate presidential powers had long been a routine fixture of Mexico’s unique political system. And not much changed with the historic defeat of the PRI in 2000. Like his predecessors, President Vicente Fox (2000– 2006) of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) also committed to fighting corruption and put in place a number of anticorruption reforms. But knowledge of that history merely feeds my feeling of ambivalence, manifesting in a fear of déjà vu (Morris 2019a). While my analysis of the López Obrador victory and his government suggests the prospect of real change (see Morris 2019b), I also know that past promises and real reforms, many of which had been championed at the time by the national and international anticorruption communities, utterly failed to accomplish the stated task (though they may have succeeded politically). In many cases, the governments, as under Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018), actually made the problem worse. And while the situation in Mexico today seems totally different for a variety of reasons, I nonetheless fear that the outcome might not be, which not only raises questions about my basic understanding of corruption, but perhaps reveals some of my own underlying biases. In the end, such curiosities and sentiments drive my study. This book delves into the varying political views on corruption and approaches to addressing them: the corruption debates. It asks whether and how such views align with traditional ideological differences pitting the left against the right and constituting a part of normal political and partisan divisions. It compares corruption across countries, across parties, and across the public/expert divide. It explores whether the left or right are more or less successful at fighting corruption. It examines the heightened politicized dimension of corruption: how corruption shapes and is shaped by intense polarization that seemingly haunts politics in so many countries today. It explores how corruption and anticorruption become politicized and weaponized by those inside and outside government to

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retain or contest power. Has anticorruption simply become the means of winning power, and corruption the means of partaking in the spoils of victory? There is no denying the importance of corruption—a fundamentally political construct—to our understanding of politics and democracy. Nevertheless, though we all may agree that corruption is a problem that undermines democracy and therefore must be addressed, we continue to battle politically over what in essence that means. * * *

A pleasant and an unpleasant situation facilitated my research for and writing of this book. The pleasant turn of events centered on the electoral victory of López Obrador and his appointment of various friends and colleagues to the government. Above all, this presented me with the unique opportunity to move to Mexico for a period of time to observe and study the new anticorruption efforts almost from the inside while participating more directly in the Mexican academic and anticorruption communities. Taking leave from my post at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), I thus accepted a research position and took over as coordinator of the Laboratory for the Documentation and Analysis of Corruption and Transparency at Mexico’s national university, UNAM. I greatly appreciate Michael Federici, Karen Petersen, and Mark Byrnes at my home institution for allowing me to take a two-year leave to work in Mexico. I am also greatly and forever appreciative of the advice, assistance, and friendship of the former coordinator of the UNAM laboratory and current secretary of public affairs (SFP), Irma Eréndira SandovalBallesteros. She has not only made my sojourn in Mexico possible but also opened many doors at the SFP, helping me to understand the much more practical, policy-oriented side of fighting corruption. In addition, I would like to thank the two research assistants assigned to the laboratory, Ricardo López Martínez and Salvador Erick Gasca Villa, especially for their research in Chapter 5; José Nicolas for his help on data presentation; Bonnie Palifka for helpful comments on Chapter 1; and my daughter, Tania Morris-Díaz, for reviewing portions of the manuscript. I would also like to thank colleagues and friends who shared their ideas on the question of the differences in the anticorruption fights between left and right governments in their respective countries of expertise, including Pedro Abramovay, Charles Blake, Fernanda Odilla, and Matthew Taylor, as well as insights from my MTSU colleague Jon DiCicco. I have also benefited from ideas and friendship in Mexico with John Ackerman, my compadre Ernesto Alvarado, Eduardo Bohórquez, Arturo del Castillo, María Ángeles Estrada, Vladimir Juarez, Fabiola Navarro, and Joel Salas.

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Despite political distance separating them, they are all committed to the fight against corruption and the pursuit of justice. Indeed, I have great admiration for those who dedicate themselves to fighting corruption. Finally, as always and for so much, I must thank my wife and novia, Celina, who has been by my side throughout this and countless other journeys. The unpleasant situation that facilitated my work is the Covid-19 pandemic. Home confinement—and respecting that confinement since I am part of an at-risk demographic—and remotely teaching my course on transparency and accountability at UNAM granted me large chunks of time to focus on research and writing. While this unintentional sabbatical allowed me the time to work in a comfortable setting, it clearly stems from privilege. This in itself is morally trying as, particularly here in Mexico, I know so many are unable to face the pandemic in such a manner. Many have already suffered and continue to suffer as governments struggle to minimize the damage and danger. My heart, admiration, and sympathies go out to so many under these trying conditions. In certain ways, while corruption maintains its saliency amid the emergency situation—and anticorruption practitioners whom I greatly admire struggle daily to help maintain the vigilance—in other ways the topic almost seems rather trivial. Still, despite the shoulders upon which I stand and the help of so many, I alone am responsible for all the errors of interpretation and analysis, as well as all the translations contained herein. Such errors help me learn. The ideas expressed here are merely part of a conversation. It does not lift the curse, however; the inquietud continues. —Stephen D. Morris

1 Ideology and the Corruption Debates

NO ONE (OPENLY) SUPPORTS CORRUPTION. NO POLITICIAN promises to increase it; no organization, treaty, or movement promotes it. “The undesirability of corruption,” as Peter Bratsis (2003, 9) notes, “is taken as a given.” This sweeping, universal condemnation, according to Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2020, 88), translates into a global consensus on the norms of good governance.1 This all suggests that corruption and its antithesis represent an apolitical, nonpartisan, and nonideological issue: a rather astounding statement amid the divisive and corrosive political environment that seems to prevail nationally and internationally. But such harmonious appearances may merely hide intense debate and disagreement among scholars, activists, and politicians about the nature of corruption and how to fight it. Surely anyone reading Robert Reich (2020), US Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) or McDonnell v. U.S. (2016), or listening to US president Donald Trump, US senator Elizabeth Warren, Mexican president Andres Manuel López Obrador, or Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro address the issue might ponder whether they are in fact talking about the same thing. Rather than apolitical, nonpartisan, or nonideological, corruption and efforts to contain it instead seem politicized and contested, drawing from and contributing to polarization, conspiracy theories, the rise of populist and antiestablishment candidates, social movements, and even, some contend, a crisis of 1

2

The Corruption Debates

democracy and authoritarian creep. Much of this may stem from the fact, as Jonathan Mendilow and Ilan Peleg (2014, 1) point out, that “students of corruption have used the term in so many contexts and with such versatility that it lost much of its theoretical and practical significance, while in colloquial speech the negative connotations frequently turned it into little more than a term of disparagement against disliked governments or individual officials.”2 This condemnation likely extends beyond just us students of corruption. As Susan Rose-Ackerman (2018, 98) avers, “the term ‘corruption’ is often used to condemn behavior that violates the speaker’s values.” Corruption may indeed be a broad, ambiguous, and elastic term, but it is hardly irrelevant. As reflected in countless public opinion polls, politicians’ speeches, the fact that from 2016 to 2018 alone eleven presidents have been impeached for corruption,3 the elaborate and costly efforts of national and international organizations to fight corruption, and the abundant literature on the topic, corruption enjoys immense importance among voters, politicians, activists, administrators, and academics. The concept of corruption has indeed become integral to the modern language of politics. To help sort through this central concept and the confusion, the current study embarks on an examination of the ideological dimensions of corruption and anticorruption: the corruption debates. It grapples with a series of questions addressing ideas, policies, and their impact. The overarching question is whether there is an identifiable difference between the left and right within the area of corruption and anticorruption. More precisely, to determine whether there is an underlying ideological pattern to the breadth and ambiguity surrounding corruption and anticorruption. Do ideas about corruption/anticorruption align with traditional ideas associated with the left and the right? Can such differences be identified within the scholarly literature or the rhetoric of politicians? Does a distinct populist narrative on corruption/anticorruption exist, and can it too be differentiated between left-populist and right-populist viewpoints? Even if definitions, approaches, theories, and/or political rhetoric exhibit such ideological foundations, do such differences actually play out in the anticorruption policies adopted by governments of the left and right? Pushing it a step further, even if such discernible ideological distinctions exist at the level of ideas, rhetoric, and/or policies, do left and right governments differ in how well they actually fight (or don’t fight) corruption? Alternatively, is

Ideology and the Corruption Debates

3

it possible that embedded within a broader politicized and polarized setting, corruption/anticorruption debates merely give the appearance of such ideological variation, but rather than pivoting along a left/right split they actually pivot more along a within-power/ out-of-power axis? Like most overture chapters, this one sets the stage. It begins by providing a brief overview of the limited literature related to questions linking ideology to corruption and anticorruption. Though research has focused on the role of partisanship and even ideology in shaping people´s perceptions of corruption or political campaigns, and, as shown in the next chapter, many depict certain views on corruption as ideological, few have explicitly explored the questions raised here. The next section further arranges the set by briefly laying out the key concepts: corruption, anticorruption, left, right, and populism. The chapter’s more extensive penultimate section then crafts a series of hypotheses, a couple of caveats, weaves in an overview of the book’s structure, and prefaces some key findings. The chapter concludes by highlighting the study’s various challenges and limitations and, finally, addressing the question of the relevance and utility of the endeavor.

Literature Review Despite what has rapidly become a vast literature on corruption, it seems that few scholars have specifically or directly addressed the questions posed here. Some studies explore the role partisanship and ideological distance play in shaping perceptions of corruption, campaign rhetoric, and governance—and vice versa. Anderson and Tverdova (2003), Bågenholm and Charron (2016), Bauhr and Charron (2018), Chang and Kerr (2017), López-López et al. (2016), Pereira and Barros (2014), and Solaz et al. (2019), for example, all show how partisanship, in-group identity, and support for the government influence a person’s perceptions of corruption. 4 Generally, people tend to be more tolerant of corruption within their own ranks, less likely to consider their candidate’s misbehavior corrupt, and more likely to recommend weaker punishment when they do. Such findings offer some support for the alternative, power factor hypothesis, explored in Chapter 6: that both the left and right tend to associate corruption with their ideological opponents while dismissing the

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The Corruption Debates

corruption among their own, contributing to the appearance of a left/right division (López-López et al. 2016). Flipping the direction of the causal arrow, some research examines how perceptions of corruption correlate with voting, partisan support, and ideology. Bågenholm (2013), Dimock and Jacobson (1995), Peters and Welch (1980), and Welch and Hibbing (1997), for example, all show how allegations of corruption decrease the vote for incumbents regardless of ideology. Survey experiments by Chong et al. (2015) in Mexico and Ferraz and Finan (2008) in Brazil draw similar conclusions. And while Burlacu (2020) finds that corruption actually has a negative effect on ideological voting particularly in high-corruption countries, Di Tella and MacCulloch (2009) and Smyth and Qian (2009) uncover a positive link between higher perceptions of corruption and the left. Di Tella and MacCulloch (2009) find that the perception of corruption increases the vote for the left, while Smyth and Qian’s (2009) study in urban China highlights a “correlation between concern about corruption and belief that access to education and income distribution is inequitable and that social protection and unemployment are very serious problems”: concerns that neatly align with the left. Finally, some studies look at the ties that link left/right parties to corruption as either a campaign issue or on the actual level of corruption itself. Bågenholm’s (2009) study of Central and Eastern European elections from 1983 to 2007, for instance, finds that rightwing parties were more likely during those years to employ anticorruption rhetoric in their campaigns. A subsequent study by Bågenholm examines the electoral fates and policy outcomes of specifically anticorruption niche parties in the same region. It shows that the more influential positions the anticorruption parties have in the government, the better the government’s performance in fighting corruption: “Anti-corruption parties seem to matter and particularly so for the electorally most successful ones” (Bågenholm 2013, 192–193). Hessami’s (2011) cross-national study of 106 countries over the 1984–2008 period, in turn, finds higher levels of corruption under right-wing governments, something he contends is due to their stronger ties to the private sector. By contrast, Klasnja’s (2015) study on Romania links corruption not to party or ideology in power, but rather to length of time in office. Simply stated, the longer a party remains in power, regardless of ideology, the more likely its members are to become corrupt. In a somewhat related manner, studies by

Ideology and the Corruption Debates

5

Curini (2015) and Gingerich (2014) focus on the impact of ideological distance and balance within a party system on corruption and good governance. Curini (2015) shows that the closer together ideologically the parties, the more likely they are to focus their electoral campaigns on the personal valence issue of corruption. Gingerich (2014), in turn, finds evidence that ideological balance among parties contributes to good governance and lower levels of corruption.5

Conceptual Tools Corruption/Anticorruption

Defining corruption—a virtual cottage industry in itself over the years—has long proved difficult. Despite countless efforts, none of the competing definitions have been able to withstand much analytical scrutiny. As Paul Heywood and Jonathan Rose (2014, 524) contend, “Academic research has struggled to develop an adequate conceptualization of corruption, which recognizes the complexity of the concept, its rootedness in certain ways of thinking about the nature of politics, and its relationship to social and economic exchanges.” While the most common scholarly approach is to “plant the flag,” so to speak, by adopting a particular definition and discarding competing formulas, the point here is to embrace the assorted definitions to try to understand their differences and, potentially, their ideological underpinnings. Since differences in definitions and conceptualizations of corruption—as the subsequent chapter shows—constitute a key rub differentiating left and right, I therefore refrain from offering (or siding with) a particular definition here. Though I will often return to the issue of definition, suffice it to note that corruption is indeed an extremely broad concept, intimately related to competing ideas of authority and the limits on power. As Michael Johnston (2004) notes, defining corruption centers on the political conflict over defining boundaries between wealth and power. Its meaning is highly contested and constantly under construction. In other words, it is a political construct and a moving target. Instead of referring simply to corruption, however, I tend to use throughout the current study the compound term corruption/anticorruption. This amalgam stresses the intrinsic relationship linking the two. From an anthropological perspective, corruption and anticorruption are seen as one phenomenon locked in a dialectic.6 Simply

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The Corruption Debates

put, how one understands corruption (particularly its meaning, nature, and causes) largely determines one’s approach to battling it. Hence, the more expansive the scope of the term, the broader the remedy. If, for instance, corruption is thought of primarily as the result of a government distorting market forces and thereby creating the opportunity for rents, then the solution centers on either eliminating these distortions or at least preventing officials from rationally acting upon the opportunities created by them. If, however, corruption is seen in terms of legal, institutional activities (systemic corruption) that tend to privilege certain interests over the public’s interest, then the solution tends to rest more on fundamental normative and institutional reforms. And if corruption is seen even more broadly as the structural result of capitalism and trying to force a round peg (capitalism) into a square hole (democracy), then the solution focuses on either eliminating or controlling capitalism or taming democracy (Girling 1997; González Casanova 2007). Broadly, if there are indeed ideological differences as explored here, then someone politically aligned with the right will tend to employ rightist solutions to address corruption, while their leftist counterpart will tend to utilize items from the leftist tool kit. Ideological Markers: Differentiating Left, Right, and Populist

In order to differentiate left and right within the field of corruption/ anticorruption, it is obviously necessary to identify left and right markers. Without delving into the vast literature on ideology, the current analysis differentiates left and right along two rather widely accepted dimensions. The first, the traditional political economy arena, focuses on state involvement in the economy. In schematic fashion, the left supports greater state intervention, the right less. The left’s inclination favoring a larger state role in the economy rests largely on its prioritizing the values of equality and social justice fastened to an underlying lack of confidence in the ability of the free market to achieve those goals. The right’s insistence on limited state involvement in the economy reflects its emphasis on prosperity and economic freedom, its abiding confidence in the “hidden hand” of the market and in the private sector to achieve these goals, and an inherent distrust of government. 7 As we will see, these tendencies often translate rather loosely and easily in terms of corruption, with

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the left seemingly more likely to blame corruption on the private sector and its privileged influence over politics, while the right assigns blame on the inflated state and its intervention in the economy. The second dimension used here to differentiate left and right centers on competing visions of democracy: republican versus liberal. The left generally embraces a more republican, Rousseauian view of democracy stressing community, participation, equality, and the concept of “the people” as sovereign. Such a view harmonizes well with its political economy values of economic equality and social justice and an emphasis on popular participation as a means to arrest the influence of capitalist forces. The right, in turn, tends to embrace a more Madisonian and Schumpeterian view of liberal democracy. This liberal version of democracy rests firmly on the idea of maximizing individual freedom (liberalism), including in particular the right (sanctity) of private property. It envisions government limited primarily to maintaining order and liberty—liberty as security—envisioning state power as largely antithetical to enhancing the scope of individual freedom. It also tends to be somewhat wary of popular participation (aka populism; mob rule; tyranny of the majority) and sees elections as the primary mechanism by which people participate in the political process and exercise some minimal control over the elite. Some embracing this republican perspective even go so far as to question the existence of a “public” or “common” interest (see Hayek 1978). These competing visions of democracy have been expressed in similar yet slightly different terms by others. Chantal Mouffe (2005, 2018), for example, draws a parallel distinction between what she labels as political liberalism (rule of law, separation of powers, and deference to individual freedom) and the democratic tradition based on the ideas of equality and popular sovereignty. “We can agree on the importance of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality for all,’” she contends, “while disagreeing sharply about their meaning and the way they should be implemented, with the different configurations of power relations that this implies” (Mouffe 2005, 113–114). Such differences clearly play out in the left/right ideological struggle. This political distinction is also neatly illustrated by the historic debate between Federalists/Antifederalists over what would become the US Constitution. Whereas the Rousseauian/Jeffersonian view emphasized a government close to the people (local councils) that taps civic virtue as key to preventing corruption, the Madisonian/liberal version that

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The Corruption Debates

won out posited a new vision of pluralism and a Montesquieun division of powers and institutional checks and balances as the more realistic means to prevent corruption.8 As they have throughout contemporary history, these left/right ideological differences scaled along both political economy and democracy dimensions nurture conflict that may be irreconcilable. Indeed, in what Mouffe (2005) labels as the “democratic paradox,” liberalism denies democracy and democracy denies liberalism. In her analysis of agonistic politics, these views cannot be reconciled by way of pluralistic compromise. Beyond these specific political and economic differences there also lies a more materialistic difference regarding the desirability and value of the status quo. Tilted more to protecting private property and maximizing personal liberty than empowering people, the more orthodox Madisonian system of political liberalism tends to offer a certain degree of protection for the status quo by institutionally dividing and sharing power. Among other results, such constituted power has the effect of rendering change difficult, piecemeal, and gradual. The republican or democratic tradition, by contrast, seeks to more readily empower popular demands, utilizing participation in everyday governance to challenge and alter a status quo that the left sees as privileging certain interests over those of the public, tending toward oligarchy (Vergara 2020). Populism offers an added dimension to the classic left/right ideological differences. Less elaborate than an ideology, populism (1) articulates the existence of a society divided between the “people” and an “elite,” (2) stresses an antagonistic relationship between the two, (3) embraces the idea of popular sovereignty and claims to represent the “true” will of the people, and (4) denigrates the elite (see De la Torre 2014; Mudde 2004; Müller 2017). Many analysts link populism to corruption. This occurs at two levels. First, populism tends to naturally portray the elite and their control as corrupt because it thwarts the will of the people. Populist leaders thus rhetorically stress the issue of corruption and promise to fight it in order to recapture and promote the will of the people. Their emphasis, as Mudde and Kaltwasser (2018) correctly note, tends to be on the democratic issue of “how to control the controllers.” And yet, at a much more concerning level, many analysts tend to characterize populist leaders as charlatans who merely use anticorruption as a political weapon, not to fight corruption per se but rather to undermine the

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institutional checks and balances ostensibly designed to fight corruption, thus dismantling democracy and establishing authoritarian controls (see Curini 2017; Kossow 2019; Mounk 2020; Mudde 2004; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2012; Mungiu-Pippidi 2020; Urbinati 2013). But despite this common populist dimension and its links to corruption, it still remains possible to differentiate left and right. Labelling the current period a populist moment, Mouffe (2018, ch. 1, par. 36)9 distinguishes right and left populists based on their values and varying conceptions of “the people” and “the elite.” Rightpopulists, she avers, tend to define the “people” in largely nationalistic (often in ethnic, racial) terms, while characterizing the “elite” in political terms as the existing political establishment (“deep state”) that controls power to serve their own self-interests and to provide handouts to immigrants and minorities considered beyond the scope of “the people.” Left-populists, by contrast, tend to define the “people” in broader, more inclusive, and less nationalistic or ethnic terms linked more closely to the concept of popular sovereignty, and depict the “elite” as an oligarchy composed of collusive economic and political interests. And though both left and right populists seek to change the system by essentially giving power back to the “people,” thus promoting their true interests, their means and objectives for doing so differ. Right-wing populists promise to bring back national sovereignty, “reserved for those deemed to be true ‘nationals,’” by stripping power from the ruling elite, but they do not necessarily see the forces of capitalism and neoliberalism as part of that establishment (ch. 1, par. 38). Instead, they seek to dismantle government social programs, reduce government regulations, strengthen the private sector, broaden the scope of liberty, and weaken the role of technical expertise in government: aspirations easily aligned with the right. The left-wing populist, by contrast, “wants to recover democracy to deepen and extend it,” dismantle or curb the neoliberal economic system, and reduce the political influence of the economic elite. In so doing, left populists embrace more egalitarian objectives while seeking to radicalize democracy by destroying the oligarchical system (ch. 1, par. 39). While the foregoing left/right map helps define the central markers used here, it still leaves open the question of what I mean by ideological alignment. Generally, ideas or policies related to corruption/ anticorruption can be considered aligned with the left or right when the meaning of corruption, its causes, or the recommendations to

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The Corruption Debates

fight it echo or overlap with the social and political problems identified (or prioritized) by the left or right; when the views on corruption fit within a broader narrative explaining the causes of broader social problems; and/or when the solutions fit within the context of left- or right-wing policy perspectives. At a more superficial level, however, the alignment can also relate to political alliances and, in a sense, “guilt by association” (Gephart 2012). This is particularly pertinent in discussing the alternative power factor thesis and whether people tend to attack or dismiss the anticorruption policies of their ideological adversary not because the policies themselves are fastened to left/right differences but simply because of the ideology of the person promoting the policies. Outside the power factor thesis, however, it is certainly possible for a leftist (rightist) president to support rightist (leftist) anticorruption policies (if policies can be differentiated ideologically) or more nonideological, or mainstream, centrist policies. In fact, as we will see, this tends to characterize certain aspects of anticorruption policies.

Guiding Hypotheses, Caveats, Methodology, Structure, and Limitations To help further clarify the purpose of the current study, orient the analysis, and offer a better program guide to what lies ahead, this section aims to weave together a series of guiding hypotheses, a pair of caveats, an overview of the methodology and structure of the book, and even preface key findings. It concludes by addressing the study’s various limitations and how the analytical endeavor contributes to the conversation. The primary organizing hypothesis of the current study is that there exists what can be considered a left/right distinction related to debates over corruption/anticorruption. This overarching hypothesis relates, first, to the ideas found within the literature, political rhetoric, and anticorruption policies of governments. Here, the focus centers largely on how corruption/anticorruption is defined, conceptualized, theorized, and fought that tend to align with the more traditional ideas associated with the left and the right. Chapters 2–4 strive to answer this central question. Chapter 2 parses the vast literature on corruption to explore how ideas, perspectives, and recommended reforms tend to align with or echo the tradi-

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tional ideas associated with the left and the right. As shown, generally the right tends to embrace a narrower definition of corruption grounded more firmly in the law (the more traditional notions of bribery, extortion, graft, and nepotism), utilize a more market-oriented approach focusing on rent-generating activities of the state rooted in an institutionalist principal-agent theoretical framework, and concentrate on administrative forms of corruption and the violation of what Mark Warren (2006) labels as first-order norms (the written established laws, rules, etc.). This perspective also tends to focus more on the problem of corruption plaguing developing countries, offers changes that seek to reduce the role of the state in the economy and society, and bolsters Madisonian forms of democracy—a position that parallels a general understanding of the right, neoliberalism, and neoinstitutionalism. Criticizing the right/orthodox view as ideological, the left, by contrast, tends to characterize and define corruption in much broader terms, centering more on the notion of the public interest with a greater focus on systemic, institutional forms of corruption and the violation of second-order norms (Warren 2006) (the more ambiguous principles, beyond the law, guiding political decisionmaking), including legal forms of corruption. The left tends to stress broad structural factors, with particular attention to the corrupt influence of capitalist forces, socioeconomic inequality, and the lack of public participation in policymaking. Consequently, the left tends to offer solutions centered less on dismantling the state and freeing market forces and more on strengthening state controls and regulations, reining in capitalist forces, and making institutional changes to enhance representation and participation by the public in both the decisionmaking process and in conducting oversight: an approach that parallels left-oriented thinking more generally. Chapter 3 addresses the main question inside the rhetoric of politicians. Focusing on a select set of political leaders from America the region (aka the Americas, with reference to the hemisphere; America, after all, is not a country), the initial part of the chapter compares the treatment of corruption/anticorruption within the respective national development plans of former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018) and current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024). The comparison illustrates key ideological, left/right differences between the two that reflects and builds on many of the ideologically rooted differences on corruption/anticorruption identified in the literature in Chapter 2. The chapter’s second section then compares

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The Corruption Debates

the campaign rhetoric on corruption and how to fight it with consideration of four politicians from the contemporary period: current Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2018–2022), López Obrador of Mexico, two-time US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and the former US president Donald Trump (2016–2020). Incorporating populism into the analysis, it posits, first, that corruption plays a central role in the thinking and rhetoric of many contemporary political leaders who clearly articulate a frontier between “the people” and an “elite,” casting the former as victim and the latter as perpetrator of corruption. Second, and despite this shared tendency, it remains possible to distinguish between left-populist and right-populist views on corruption/anticorruption. Discussion illustrates the common populist tendencies while distinguishing among the left (López Obrador and Sanders) and the right (Bolsonaro and Trump). Chapter 4 concludes the focus on ideas by comparing the anticorruption policies of a select group of left and right governments from the region. This includes the policies of the three victorious presidential candidates examined in the prior chapter—Bolsonaro (R), López Obrador (L), and Trump (R)—as well as the governments of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015) (L) and Mauricio Macri (2015–2019) (R) in Argentina; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) (L) in Brazil; Peña Nieto (2012–2018) (R) in Mexico; and Nicolás Maduro (2013–) (L) in Venezuela. 10 Based on a review of government documents and policy statements, assessments by international organizations, and secondary sources, the analysis searches for any pattern of differences that might align with the left/right nature of these governments. It includes assessments of how government policies may have strengthened or weakened anticorruption efforts, particularly the government’s reactions to allegations of corruption within its own ranks. As the analysis shows, such policy differences do exist, but they remain rather limited in comparison to the rhetorical divergence among politicians or the differences rooted in the scholarly literature. Many governments of the left and right share a number of programs and approaches to battling corruption and even react in similar ways when facing allegations of corruption within their ranks. Such similarities provide a degree of continuity and may reflect the role of professionals within government, particularly autonomous agencies, and the influence of international organizations and international agreements over national anticorruption agendas.

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Chapter 5 stretches the central hypothesis beyond ideas and policies to focus on the outcomes of the anticorruption efforts of left and right governments. The working hypothesis quite simply contends that there is an empirically verifiable difference between the two. This is tested by examining data for the countries of the region during the 2005–2020 period. Categorizing governments as left or right as the independent variable, a range of measures reflecting the views of different groups (experts, businesses, and the public) is used to try to gauge the impact of their anticorruption policies. Measures include the widely used Corruption Perception Index and the Global Corruption Barometer from Transparency International (TI), the executive survey of the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) of the Global Economic Forum, the Americas Barometer surveys from Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), and specific metrics within the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) and the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WBI) from the World Bank. The analysis also utilizes data on integrity measures (mechanisms designed to control corruption) such as the WBI’s Rule of Law Index, the Rule of Law Index by the World Justice Institute, and the Open Budget Survey (OBS) of the International Budget Partnership. Though existing proxy measures of corruption are all methodologically challenged, they nonetheless provide a rough glance at the levels of corruption and hence the governments’ effectiveness in combatting it. Generally, the analysis shows mixed performance of left and right government and, overall, limited progress in battling corruption. Such an outcome points to the significant political challenges of fighting corruption and perhaps even to our limited understanding of anticorruption. Chapter 6 presents and explores an alternative: the power factor hypothesis. Offered perhaps with a pinch of cynicism, it contends that what might appear as left/right and partisan differences on corruption/anticorruption relates less to distinct ideologically based thinking and more to an in-power versus out-of-power dynamic. This alternative hypothesis posits that corruption/anticorruption has become politicized by both those in and out of power regardless of left/right, populist/nonpopulist stances. In the pursuit of power, both groups essentially weaponize corruption/anticorruption while at the same time attacking and trying to discredit their adversaries for doing the same. Just as governments often utilize the fight against corruption for political gain, out-of-power opponents stress how the government’s anticorruption efforts actually concentrate power and weaken

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The Corruption Debates

anticorruption institutions. This attack is particularly potent when members of the government face allegations of corruption. Such political contention among in-power/out-of-power groups, however, is filtered through the hegemonic left/right and partisan prism, thus giving the impression of, and/or exaggerating, a left/right dimension to the issue of corruption/anticorruption. Caveats

Two caveats shadow all the hypotheses entertained here. The first is a reminder of the relevant null hypothesis: that there are no or few differences between the left and right in any of the arenas examined. Basically, it posits that scholars, politicians, and governments, regardless of ideology, tend to see corruption basically the same way, offer/promise similar recommendations, act basically the same with respect to fighting corruption, and, in the end, produce mixed outcomes. The null hypothesis, in short, echoes the ideas captured in the opening motif of the chapter: that a broad, global consensus prevails in which all politicians, irrespective of ideological or partisan jersey, rail against corruption, claim it undermines the achievement of the national interest, embrace the common and universal goals of good governance, promise to fight corruption in order to get elected or retain power, and then, once in office, deploy similar anticorruption measures (though perhaps to limited avail). The second caveat is that the hypotheses are neither binomial nor mutually exclusive. This means, first, that regardless of left/right difference in the understandings and approaches to corruption/anticorruption, areas of substantial agreement may still exist. It is not a question of either/or. Throughout, the analysis will strive to highlight common strands cutting across the left and right, or what could be seen as moderate positions that borrow from both. Simply put, this caveat suggests a model of concentric circles with the left and right overlapping and sharing many ideas and policies on corruption/anticorruption, but that the unshared portions of the two circles nonetheless illustrate different views that align with the left and right respectively. The nature of the two circles, their overlap and differences, are not static of course and may change as a result of the dynamic and contested construction of ideas on corruption/anticorruption. Generally, once-critical and heterodox ideas are often eventually deemed credible over time and tend to lead to the reformulation of ideas and even the broadening of the mainstream orthodoxy.

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Second, this also means that the hypotheses are in some ways independent of one another and not mutually exclusive. Differences in one area or level do not necessarily translate to another. Even if there are clear left/right differences in the scholarly ideas and/or political rhetoric, for instance, there may be few if any differences in terms of actual policies or their impact. Similarly, despite left/right differences in the understanding of corruption or even policy approaches and/or distinct populist views, none precludes the polarization of corruption/ anticorruption (the power thesis) that serves, independently, to magnify and exacerbate these left/right differences. This second caveat, in turn, leads to a final hypothesis relating to the overall tendencies explored here. It suggests that the ideologicalbased differences in corruption/anticorruption tend to diminish as we descend the ladder of abstraction from ideas as expressed by scholars and even politicians on the campaign trail to government policies and, finally, to their impact. Prefacing the findings once again, such nuances are largely what this analysis, like most studies generally, reveals. The concluding chapter circles back to the beginning of this chapter and echoes something often expressed in the literature: that despite its widespread use and universal condemnation, the concept of corruption is quite broad and ambiguous. It is hard to claim that it is so ambiguous that it is of limited use, however, because politically it carries prominence and relevance, particularly in the current epoch. Scholars, politicians, businesspersons, activists, and voters all talk extensively about corruption; they all condemn it; and they all fervently believe we should fight it, perhaps unaware of the fact that we may be referring to different things. Indeed, the current analysis reveals not only how the multiple meanings and ambiguities of corruption help project left and right differences but also how our intense focus on corruption contributes to its politicization and deepening polarization. Though arguably a cardinal component of the nature of politics itself, it does seem to have taken on a greater significance and urgency in recent years. Such issues are discussed and developed more fully in the final chapter, concluding with a brief discussion of corruption dilemmas. Limitations

Like any study, the current endeavor carries a number of limitations and warnings that should be taken into account when assessing its findings. These limitations reflect issues of time, space, scope, and

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The Corruption Debates

methodology. One difficulty centers on time and the dynamics of ideas on corruption/anticorruption. Everything is iterative. Ideas and policies are constantly evaluated, assessed, criticized, revised, rethought, and redesigned, and corruption/anticorruption is no different. Definitions, conceptualizations, explanations, approaches, strategies, and the like on corruption/anticorruption have evolved over the years in response to criticism, dead-ends, new ideas, and so on. In some areas the scope of the thinking has expanded; in other areas it has converged. This complicates a broad analysis of the field or policies, as offered here, which strives to understand and explain by offering portraits or snapshots views, comparing these at different points in time. But with so many moving parts within the highly contested, lively, iterative, and constructive process, it is much more complicated to adequately provide a streaming depiction. Though the exposition in Chapter 2 makes an effort to address the issue of change and the historiography of corruption/anticorruption-related ideas, it remains a rather static view linking certain ideas in the literature to the left and to the right. Of course, despite evolutionary changes in the field, such existing ideas nonetheless remain as part of the literature and continue to influence our thinking, even though “current thinking” on the topic may be a bit more nuanced. Beyond ideas and policies, the same temporal issue limits the empirical analysis. Comparing the impact of left and right governments in fighting corruption is complicated by the fact that in many cases the time periods of the two differ. This makes it difficult to determine whether the policies or the outcomes by one government compared to another reflects the policies the government pursued or the specific time period in which it governed and hence the lessons learned and experience gained over the course of time. It also complicates the use of robustness checks and control variables. Time is also a limitation in terms of the time periods explored. Though analysis reaches back to some earlier thinking on corruption, most of the analysis here concentrates on the contemporary period of the twenty-first century. The political rhetoric and policies represent recent governments and political campaigns, while the empirical portion only looks at the record over the past fifteen or so years. Again, this limits the relevance and applicable scope of any findings just to the specific period and may not travel well across time. A second limitation relates to space: specifically, in terms of the cases and evidence used here to test the hypotheses. Throughout, the

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analysis is limited to select cases, making the results merely suggestive rather than conclusive. Whereas analysis of the literature looks broadly to parse out left/right differences, it does not offer an exhaustive review of the vast literature. Owing to the nature of the methodology and the limited number of cases examined, the analyses of political rhetoric and anticorruption policies are even more limited. Here, the cases were selected based largely on my work on Mexico and the United States and a basic understanding of Latin America. While it tries to incorporate the comparative approaches of both the most different systems (United States versus Latin American countries) and most similar systems (Latin America) designs, it nonetheless remains a small sample. Even the larger N made possible by cross-national empirical analysis still remains focused only on the countries of the region. This reflects in large part the relative ease of identifying left versus right governments in the region while basically controlling for the impact of nonregional factors on outcome. Nonetheless, this too renders the results suggestive, raising the question of whether they might apply to or can be duplicated by broadening the scope of the analysis to prior periods of time or other regions of the world. A third limitation centers on analytical scope. The focus here centers largely on the independent variable of ideology and whether ideological foundations can be found within the ideas and political rhetoric related to corruption/anticorruption, the policies of anticorruption, and outcomes among left and right governments. On occasion, and where possible, other causal factors may be taken into account and discussed, but rarely is it possible to incorporate any sort of robustness checks to control for the influence of other factors on outcome. I am more interested in determining, for example, whether left or right governments perform better, worse, or the same in fighting corruption than accounting for the factors that determine success/ failure of anticorruption measures. Recommendations or my solutions to resolve the problem of corruption also lie beyond the scope of the current study. Frankly, I wish I knew. While Chapters 6 and 7 highlight both the positive and negative impacts of politicization and polarization on efforts to fight corruption, the study offers little in terms of actionable policy recommendations. Instead, as discussed in the concluding chapter, the study highlights many of the dilemmas that complicate and undermine efforts to fight corruption, helping to explain the poor outcomes most countries have achieved.

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The Corruption Debates

A final limitation relates to methodology. With the exception of the empirical analysis on outcome, the primary methodological tool used here involves the analysis of the literature on corruption, the speeches and writings of political leaders, and the policies based largely on reports and assessments of corruption/anticorruption within countries.11 None of these is particularly rigorous or as scientifically objective as many of my colleagues might prefer. Even the empirical portion is basically limited to a descriptive review of the experiences of the countries and simply comparison of means. Nonetheless, I strive to maintain the basic principles of objectivity and fairness demanded of the task. Relevance and Utility

The current study is not a disguised effort to politically support or strengthen “my side” in the debate; instead, it springs from a genuine intellectual curiosity regarding the ideological underpinnings on corruption/anticorruption and the record of the left and the right in fighting corruption. I am a student, not a politician. But beyond satisfying curiosity, why is such an endeavor important, especially since, as just noted, recommendations are placed beyond its scope? Indeed, even if there are differences between the left and the right, what contribution does that make? First, the study seeks to offer conceptual and theoretical clarity that has important policy implications. Recognizing how the same term often carries different meanings and that we are often not talking about the same thing is important in advancing the conversation and specifying policy responses. As Arvind Jain (2001, 73) notes, “While it may appear to be a semantic issue, how corruption is defined actually ends up determining what gets modelled and measured.” In fact, as an “umbrella term for a wide range of complex phenomena” (Ledeneva et al. 2017, 4), complexity is too often downplayed to enable research and measurement. Second, the study crystallizes the political dimensions not only of corruption but more fundamentally the meanings, approaches, and perspectives on the topic. Despite some efforts to treat corruption as a neutral objective term utterly divorced from politics, such a task is illusionary. Perspectives and understandings of corruption tend to privilege certain interests over others and reflect underlying political views, both of which carry policy and real world consequences. Finally, the study helps show how the inherently political struggle to define corruption and

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determine what gets measured, modeled, and addressed through policy coupled with the sheer breadth of the phenomenon forge a series of dilemmas that contribute to the difficulties of fighting corruption. Combined, perhaps these suggest the need to more carefully disaggregate the different forms of corruption and move beyond the use of the generic term. But even that effort is fraught with political and moralistic problems. * * *

With the stage set, analysis begins by parsing the vast literature on corruption. Once a largely neglected issue relegated to the margins, the topic has enjoyed substantial attention by scholars since the mid1990s. As the next chapter shows, it is an intriguing field of study that has no disciplinary address: a fact that enriches the contributions and enlivens the debate.

Notes 1. Pointing to this global consensus and the lack of dissent surrounding the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption or claims that it imposes Western hegemony, Mungiu-Pippidi (2020, 88, 89) refers to the “worldwide endorsement of the norms of good governance [as] one of the more striking achievements of modernization.” 2. Anthropologists Muir and Gupta (2018, S6) point precisely to the lack of definitional precision as the key to the concept’s success as a global term. Being hard to define and yet always considered bad, it is easy for people to use it to condemn any social ills. 3. Noted by Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari during a presentation at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, April 2020 (virtual). 4. Tavits’s (2008) cross-national study, which overall shows people have higher levels of subjective well-being when (1) their governments perform well (i.e., free from corruption) and (2) the party of their choice is in power, finds, however, that having one’s party of choice in power increases a sense of well-being only when governments are clean—not when they are corrupt. 5. Such studies are different from those stressing how certain definitions of corruption are ideological. Granovetter (2004, 8), for instance, links ideology to changing constructions of corruption: “The ideology that individuals use to effectively neutralize perceptions of imputations of corrupt behavior is in explicit contrast to another that would condemn and restrain reciprocity of this type as illegitimate and corrupt exchange.” 6. In referring to this dialectic, Muir and Gupta (2018) point out how the two are in constant movement as each anticorruption action transforms the logic of corruption and each corrupt practice calls for new anticorruption measures. As a result, anticorruption always produces unintended consequences. Legalistic modes of anticorruption, for example, can distract people from other forms of corruption that may be legal, or anticorruption can encourage ways of gaming the system.

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7. Martin and Shohat (2003) suggest that the tendency for government to favor private interests rests on an ideological position that assumes government is corrupt. 8. Indeed, much of the debate during the US Constitutional Convention centered precisely on how to prevent systemic corruption (see Madison 1961; Teachout 2014; Vergara 2020). 9. Occasionally, books read on Kindle (electronic format) fail to show page numbers, showing instead location numbers. Throughout this book, I cite these sources by chapter and paragraph. 10. As described in the chapter, these cases were selected in an effort to try to balance the number of governments of the left (4) and right (4), including where possible right and left within the same country, such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, governments from both the moderate left (Fernández de Kirchner and Lula) and far left (Maduro). The inclusion of the United States provides an interesting contrast to Latin America and incorporates broader forms and understandings of corruption, building on the analysis from Chapter 3. 11. Much of the analysis here centers on identifying competing narratives about corruption. Generally, this approach is grounded in the field of discourse analysis (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Foucault 1969). Maarten Hajer (2005, 300), for example, defines discourse “as an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is produced and reproduced through an identifiable set of practices.” The underlying idea is that such narratives compete for dominance or hegemony, which is achieved when a particular narrative starts to determine the way a social unit conceptualizes reality, known as discourse structuration, and when the discourse is manifested in institutional arrangements (a system of measurement and policy measures), known as discourse institutionalization (Gephart 2012, 10). Of course, other narratives or discourses seek to contest the hegemonic discourse and weaken its hold on people’s understandings of reality and its shaping of institutions and policies.

2 Parsing the Literature

DESPITE (OR UNDERLYING) MENDILOW AND PELEG’S (2014, 1) previously cited contention that “students of corruption have used the term [corruption] in so many contexts and with such versatility that it lost much of its theoretical and practical significance,” the vast literature on corruption in fact offers a rich tapestry of competing constructions and theoretical approaches loosely stitched together by scholars from many disciplines and settings. Penned by scholars from all over the world, the literature encompasses contributions from philosophy and ethics, virtually all the social sciences, business studies, cognitive and social psychology, and organizational theory, among others. This chapter parses the literature to explore the primary hypothesis linking the ideas on corruption/anticorruption with ideas traditionally fastened to the left and the right. Such ideological tendencies are rooted in competing definitions, conceptualizations, theoretical perspectives, anticorruption approaches, and critiques. The chapter begins by focusing on what is labeled here and by others as the orthodox view of corruption/anticorruption that, as will be shown, tends to align ideologically with the right. This is followed by a discussion of the critiques of the orthodox view that both highlight its ideological underpinnings and nurture the elaboration of many views that align ideologically with the left. Elaborating then on the prominent ideas aligning with the left, the chapter traces the linkages and concludes with a simple model of the major ideologically based differences. 21

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The purpose here, to reiterate, is not to provide an exhaustive, dissertation-style review of the literature but rather to identify prominent ideas in the literature that tend to align with the left and the right. Since scholars normally refrain from explicitly acknowledging ideological and political identification in their academic writings, care is taken to specify the reasons why certain constructions, approaches, explanations, and recommendations align with the ideas of the right or the left. To be sure, not all of the ideas neatly fit or align with either pole, though many of these ideas are discussed here in the broader context of other writings.

Corruption/Anticorruption (Orthodox/Right) Despite the work of a rather small group of what could be called firstgeneration corruption scholars of the contemporary period (Heidenheimer 1970; Huntington 1968; Klitgaard 1988; Leff 1964; Nye 1967; Rose-Ackerman 1978; Scott 1972), it was not until the mid-1990s that the study of corruption exploded. Owing to a combination of the end of the Cold War, the creation of the international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Transparency International (TI) by former leaders of the World Bank, the availability of country-based data measuring corruption, and globalization (“the end of history” and the triumph of capitalist-liberal democracy) (Fukuyama 1992), a second generation of scholars emerged who, within a few short years, seemed to have firmly established a shared paradigm—an orthodox approach and understanding of corruption (Johnston 2005; Johnston and Fritzen 2020). Dominated largely by economists at or from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the West, this orthodoxy was quickly embraced by the major international financial institutions, Western aid agencies, international business, the highly influential TI, and other NGOs, all of whom helped place corruption high atop the international agenda (Glynn et al. 1997; Wedel 2012, 454). These actors crafted formulas to fight corruption, drafted model legislation, and helped forge international treaties. Much of this orthodoxy, as shown here, tends to align ideologically with the right. The orthodox/rightist approach to corruption rests on a number of basic and rather widely accepted principles, particularly strong in the earliest years of second-generation corruption work. First, it tends to define corruption rather narrowly, as a form of individual conduct delineated largely by the law (legal criterion to define corruption)

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and motivated by and serving personal interest. Many corruption studies recycle Nye’s (1967) earlier definition as “behavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private regarding (personal, close family, private clique) pecuniary or status gains; or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private regarding influence.” Second, the orthodox/right approach casts the state as the primary unit of analysis, the site of corruption, the locus of the problem, and hence the target of reform (Heywood 2016). Rooted in a public/private division, the emphasis is on public-sector corruption with limited attention outside the state. Third, drawing on the formula offered earlier by Klitgaard (1988) and heavily influenced by the ideas of neo-institutionalism, economic institutionalism, and rational choice (RC) theory, many embracing this view tend to adopt a principal-agent (PA) framework to understand or conceptualize corruption (Heywood 2016). In fact, Ugur and Dasgupta’s (2011) mega-review of 115 studies of corruption found all using the PA approach (cited in Marquette and Peiffer 2018). Largely reminiscent of Becker’s (1968) economic theory of crime and punishment, corruption is thus seen as a product of how state institutions shape the opportunities and risks informing rational individual decisions about whether to engage in illegal private-regarding behavior or not. Of particular importance is too much discretion, the lack of oversight and transparency, and the possibility of being caught and punished (Klitgaard 1988; Tanzler et al. 2016). From the PA perspective, it is largely assumed that agents will (rationally) take advantage of the opportunity for illicit gain. Or as Malte Gephart (2012, 14) concludes, “Corruption is not caused by ‘people’ but by incentive structures.” Fourth, the opportunities feeding corruption are cast largely in economic terms as a product of the rents created when state regulations distort market forces (see Krueger 1974; Rose-Ackerman 1978, 1999). Research thus tries to understand how institutions structure the incentives to engage in corruption both by providing opportunity and by limiting the chances of being caught and sanctioned. Fifth, there is a strong consensus that corruption carries pernicious consequences and represents (economically at least) a suboptimal outcome (Rose-Ackerman 1999). This distances the second-generation camp from earlier functionalist thinking led by Leff (1964), Huntington (1968), and others that corruption might have positive effects for development.1 Finally, corruption within the orthodox/right school is often viewed within the broader context of modernization theory (an even stronger orthodoxy). As such, it is seen as not only contrary to the modern

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Weberian ideal of bureaucracy and liberal democracy but also primarily a problem of development—and thus a matter largely affecting developing countries (Tanzler et al. 2016, 21). As such, Western powers are generally hoisted as the ideal and the host of the “best practices” presented to developing countries (Johnston and Fritzen 2021, 17). Though acknowledging that the problem is not simply ephemeral and that corruption does in fact exist in developed countries, the bulk of the analyses and recommendations nonetheless tend to highlight and target the state within developing countries. Theoretically, the orthodox/right approach, as noted, draws strongly on economic institutionalism (neo-institutionalism) and RC and modernization theories. As such, it tends to tie corruption to institutional and broader structural factors that shape individual decisionmaking by state officials. Reflecting the empirical evidence that developed societies tend to suffer less corruption than developing countries, explanations of corruption focus on the holdover of traditional gift-giving values, the rise of more modern and universal values within society, growing levels of education, the emergence of middle-class demands for political equality and accountability, a more participatory culture, the rise and spread of media, and the development of more professional ethics, including professional bureaucracies.2 Similarly couched within modernization theory, the orthodox/right approach emphasizes the role of democracy, competitive elections, pluralism and the maturity of civil society, and the development of social capital in effectively limiting corruption by fueling demands for accountable institutions and for creating horizontal and vertical controls over government (Della Porta and Vannucci 1997; Pellegata 2013, Rose-Ackerman 1999).3 Viewed within Down’s (1957) economic model of democracy, for example, electoral choice produces a dynamic in which parties are forced to become ever more accountable in order to win power. In concert with this economic model of democracy, the orthodox view also emphasizes a free-market economy, economic openness and competition, and a limited state. Such economic freedom creates a more autonomous bourgeoisie that can counter and balance the power of the state and through economic competitiveness prevents economic interests from seeking favors from the state. Naturally, the anticorruption views of the orthodox/right approach grow out of its understanding of the nature of corruption. Broaching corruption as scientific, rational, and universal (Gephart 2012, 15), recommendations center on specific institutional reforms designed to alter underlying incentive structures. At one level, seeing corruption as a

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problem afflicting primarily developing states rather than Western democracies—where rational and universal principles perhaps struggle to take hold—many recommendations center on emulating the practices of the West. Flagging the state as the main culprit, its emphasis on the corrupt impact of “excessive” government intervention informs recommendations for essentially neoliberal economic reforms (deregulation, privatization, and liberalization of financial and labor markets) while its emphasis on Western-style liberal democracy supports recommendations for accountability, greater democratic controls including press freedom, enhanced electoral competition, and greater public involvement. The tendency to see politics and the state as corrupting naturally supports a minimalist view of the state and efforts to insulate the state from politics (Johnston 2014, 12). “The discourse of good governance . . . promotes an agenda of neoliberal reform, insisting that states accept a common set of governance values, institutions and practices” (Hindess 2005, 1396). In a nice coincidence of interests, not only do such reforms help promote freedom, prosperity, and development (goals associated with the right), but they also eliminate the state’s distortions of the market and hence drive down the opportunities and incentives for corruption while strengthening vertical and horizontal forms of accountability. An early World Bank (1997, 105–106; cited in Gephart 2012, 15) prescription, for instance, noted the need to “increase the competitiveness of the economy . . . [and] lower controls on foreign trade, remove entry barriers to private industry, and privatize state firms in a way that ensures competition will all support the fight [against corruption]. If the state has no authority to restrict exports or to license businesses, there will be no opportunities to pay bribes in those areas.” The orthodox/right view embraces a range of both preventive and punitive measures. Specific institutional measures include eliminating red tape, simplifying administrative procedures, professionalizing and depoliticizing the bureaucracy, broadening transparency, strengthening oversight, and bolstering the detection and punishment of corrupt behavior. In many ways, however, the thinking tends to cast anticorruption as largely a technical matter of manipulating and fine-tuning institutional incentive structures (Bukovansky 2006, 183). Even after numerous country studies, particularly in Eastern Europe and Latin America, showed how neoliberal reforms and even democratization resulted in more, rather than less, corruption or, at best, not the anticipated reduction, attention shifted within the international financial institutions and TI toward a more refined focus on institutional design and governance issues as keys to market development. Rather than

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eliminating the state, it became more of an issue of getting the state right. This bolstered the need to strengthen state institutions and the rule of law while still restricting the degree of state intervention and providing greater emphasis on the role of popular participation to enhance mechanisms of accountability. To be sure, the right/orthodox position on corruption finds ample support among a wave of empirical cross-national studies conducted during the period. These pioneering studies that greatly advanced the study of corruption consistently and robustly show less corruption among countries with higher levels of economic development, more open economies, more competitive democracies, greater press freedoms, stronger Weberian bureaucracies, fewer regulations, and even better paid bureaucrats (see Ades and Di Tella 1997; Dimant 2013; Enste and Heldman 2017; Pellegata 2013; Treisman 2007). Many of these correlations, however, tend to weaken or even disappear when looking solely at developing countries. Even so, it should be noted that the measures of corruption used for most of these empirical studies are based on the perceptions of country experts, aid workers, and business executives who largely share this orthodox vision of corruption. Correlation not being causation, Johnston and Fritzen (2021, 34) in fact question whether such factors might not be the consequences of long-term processes of fighting corruption in the developed countries rather than the causes. But while the empirical studies on the causes of corruption lend support to the orthodox/right theories, unfortunately the empirical record of their recommended anticorruption measures is far less impressive. With more than two decades atop the political agenda, a string of anticorruption conventions, and the concerted effort of a slew of international programs and assistance from the West, there is striking little evidence that the level of corruption around the world has fallen. This is a somewhat tenuous conclusion given the problems of actually calculating corruption. Still, early views that democratization and neoliberal economic reforms would lower the levels of corruption were largely gainsaid by the experiences of countries during the third wave. In a sense, these second-generation studies have contributed much more to our understanding of corruption than to anticorruption.4 Critiques of the Orthodox Approach

Despite its prominence and broad acceptance among scholars and within official circles, the orthodox/rightist approach has attracted

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ample criticism over the years. Noting “how a social phenomenon like corruption is defined shapes the terms for analyzing it” (Wedel 2012, 456), much of this criticism has “deconstruct[ed] the ideological and conceptual underpinnings of the dominant definitions and interpretations of corruption” (Brown and Cloke 2011, 117). Broadly, such critiques cast the accepted definition, conceptualization, and approach to corruption and the anticorruption prescriptions as political and ideological, privileging certain interests over others (Bedirhanoglu 2007; Breit 2010; Brown and Cloke 2004, 2011; Bukovansky 2006; Coronado 2008; De Maria 2008; Murphy 2011; Rocha et al. 2011). These critiques help crystallize the orthodox view’s ideological alignment with the right while also giving rise to alternative ideas aligned with the left. Generally, critics cast the orthodox approach as anti-South, antistate, ahistorical, acultural, and neoliberal, reflecting a narrow and restricted definition and understanding of the nature of corruption. The approach is “based upon an implicit understanding of ‘proper’ politics as being Western-style liberal democracies” (Andersson and Heywood 2009, 750) and is embedded within a neoliberal model that is inherently anti-state (Hall 1999). It emphasizes corruption as an institutional design problem (Philip 2006, 6; cited in Andersson and Heywood 2009, 751) and associates corruption with poor, developing, and nondemocratic countries (Galtung 2005). In summary form, the critiques highlight five major areas: First, that the orthodox approach tends to characterize corruption in a biased manner that stresses the forms of corruption—bribery, extortion by public officials—that are more prevalent in developing countries while neglecting the forms of corruption—influence access, legal corruption—found in developed countries. Moreover, in that such an understanding of corruption is coupled with a reliance on the views of business executives and aid experts to measure corruption in the most prominent index (TI’s Corruption Perception Index [CPI]), this approach influences the results of the empirical studies and creates popular perceptions about which countries are more corrupt. This bias against the South is assailed by some as imperialistic (Bedirhanoglu 2007) and an attack on the cultures of developing countries (Coronado 2008). De Maria (2008), for instance, goes so far as to cast anticorruption as a form of neocolonialism, arguing that the new concern for corruption sends the West back to Africa. For Villanueva (2019), TI perpetuates the imperial myth that these countries, like in the case of Puerto Rico, are deficient and require monitoring and discipline by the West to correct their failures. In a particularly pointed attack, Mlada

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Bukovansky (2006, 198) notes how by linking the problem of corruption to the problem of underdevelopment, the advanced industrial countries “implicitly and unjustifiably claim the moral high ground for themselves.” This, in turn, “absolves those living in liberal capitalist states from scrutinizing their own polities in terms of a discourse of corruption.” For Bukovansky (2006, 182), corruption has become the “routine way of addressing the ‘development gap’ between North and South.” Second, the orthodox approach is considered anti-state: that it tends to focus almost exclusively on corruption located within the state (and among public officials) while neglecting other forms and areas of corruption—particularly the corruption within the private sector. MarcusDelgado (2003), for example, claims that the International Financial Institution’s (IFI) focus on corruption is designed to discredit the state in developing countries, thus facilitating its dismantling. For many, this intense focus on the state in developing countries as the source of the problem neglects or downplays the role of international and national businesses operating inside these countries. Brown and Cloke (2011, 117) and Murphy (2011), for instance, both note how TI and the anticorruption community paid almost no attention to the global financial crisis. Again in his analysis of Puerto Rico, Villanueva (2019) similarly notes how the United States and the international community blamed the economic crisis on corruption rather than on bondholders, predatory banks, and US federal regulations, resulting in the Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act of 2016 that pushed austerity onto the island. He concludes that the anticorruption measures were used politically to limit self-government and cut social spending. By seeing corruption largely as a problem located within the state and rooted in the incentive structures and a distortion of market forces creating rent-seeking behavior, the anticorruption prescriptions of the orthodox approach, indeed, center largely on rolling back the state through deregulation, privatization, and liberalization. Such anticorruption formulas, critics are quick to point out, go hand-in-hand with a neoliberal economic agenda or the Washington consensus (Williamson 1990). Thus a third and perhaps loudest criticism is that the orthodox approach offers political and ideological support or cover for neoliberalism (Arellano Gault 2017). Tanzler et al. (2016, 20), for instance, casts Klitgaard’s (1988) formula for corruption (Corruption = Discretion + Monopoly – Accountability) as being rooted in “the economic paradigm of unrestrained market forces [which in turn] offers the conceptual means and normative principles against which corruption

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should be evaluated and managed.” As Barry Hindess (2005, 1396) notes, “The discourse of good governance . . . promotes an agenda of neoliberal reform, insisting that states accept a common set of governance values, institutions and practices.” The external pressures on governments to adopt their anticorruption formulas, in turn, denies the developing countries agency to determine for themselves the contours of political authority (Bukovansky 2006, 182). Not only do the anticorruption prescriptions echo the push for neoliberal economic reforms (White 2013), but corruption also tends to provide a logical explanation for the failures of the neoliberal reforms to deliver on its promises. Politicians and corruption, in short, become convenient scapegoats for economic failure (Girling 1997, 7). So rather than question the economic reforms themselves, the failures of the neoliberal model to produce the promised outcome is attributed to the corruption of venal state officials in the developing country. A fourth point of criticism is that the orthodox approach is both ahistorical and acultural (De Maria 2008, 186) and hence tends to offer simplistic one-size-fits-all solutions. Pinar Bedirhanoglu (2007), for instance, points to the contradiction in neoliberal orthodoxy between “the complexity and specificity of the sources and the simplicity and universality of the solutions.” Anthropologists focusing attention on the role of culture in shaping understandings and practices of corruption are generally quick to attack the orthodox approach as neglecting culture (on corruption from an anthropological perspective, see Gupta 1995; Haller and Shore 2005; Hira 2016; Muir and Gupta 2018; Sissener 2001; Smith 2007; Torsello and Venard 2016). Indeed, the dominant institutional perspective in the study of corruption and the deductive and universalistic RC approach leave little room for culture or historical forces shaping corruption or the nature and impact of anticorruption measures. A final concern, and arguably the bedrock of all the criticisms noted, centers on definition.5 For many, the standard definition of corruption is overly narrow, reflecting largely a legalistic and economics approach that has the effect of neglecting certain forms of corruption while highlighting those forms of corruption that are of most concern to the international business community (De Maria 2008, 192; Murphy 2011). According to Michael Johnston (2005, 6), though the interest in corruption is good, “the vision that has emerged over the past decade is a partial one at best,” with corruption reduced to a synonym with bribery or rent-seeking and primarily as an economic development

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problem: “The new emphasis on corruption has been limited in a variety of ways by the interests and worldviews of the organizations and interests spearheading debate and policy change.” Moreover, the tendency that envisions politics itself and the state as corrupting—a view that naturally leads to minimalist views of the state and efforts to insulate the state from politics—inappropriately seeks to depoliticize the state rather than seeing politics as engagement, open dialogue, and the source of accountability (Johnston 2014, 12). To be sure, the criticisms—along with interactions, negotiations, and experience in the operational arena—have prompted some revisions and changes to the orthodox view over time. As stressed earlier, everything is iterative. Definitions of corruption by scholars and leaders of the major anticorruption entities began to broaden as informal norms that challenged reform initiatives, the problems of unprincipled principals, and the role of transnational actors from nominally less corrupt nations all started to gain attention. By the mid-2000s, TI had come to define corruption simply as the violation of entrusted power, thus expanding the concept’s scope to incorporate the private sector and reach beyond the law itself, while the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption largely passed on even providing a concrete definition in favor of listing the characteristics of good governance (Mungiu-Pippidi 2020). Similarly, as noted, acknowledging the empirical findings showing a lack of progress in fighting corruption, many were forced not only to rethink the initial theoretical propositions that democracy and neoliberal reforms should reduce corruption but also to refine their policy prescriptions. As Mungiu-Pippidi (2020, 99) contends, over the years, the language became more balanced, focusing on both supply and demand of corruption, sharing blame and even raising questions about the ethnical universalism of the West. At the same time it seems that the study expanded well beyond economists and political scientists to attract the attention of anthropologists, sociologists, social psychologists, and others. In some ways, these developments greatly broadened the scope of ideas and perhaps even pushed many of the orthodox views a bit more to the ideological center. Still, much of the orthodoxy approach remains, with a loose consensus regarding the dominant understanding of the nature of corruption and its approaches to fighting corruption. At the same time, the criticisms and the broadening of debate helped set the stage for emergence of the development of ideas on corruption/anticorruption that clearly align ideologically with the left.6

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Corruption/Anticorruption on the Left Though the contemporary left’s understanding and approach to corruption stems largely from the critique of the orthodox approach, certain fundamental aspects of the left’s views can be traced to earlier Marxist views of the state. Though rarely mentioned in the contemporary corruption literature, orthodox Marxism depicted the state as an epiphenomenon fully captured by the bourgeoisie, serving their class interests and the needs of capital accumulation to the detriment of the public interest: clearly what most scholars recognize as a structural form of corruption or state capture (Carnoy 1984). Even post-Marxist views, which acknowledge the limited autonomy of the state vis-à-vis the capitalist class under certain conditions (Luxemburg 1970; Miliband 1969), describe how the state nonetheless privileges the particularistic interests of the entrepreneurial class even when specific entrepreneurs are unable to do so. Such notions offer historical preface to a growing literature on state capture by moneyed interests (see Etzioni 2014; Vazquez Valencia 2019). At heart, of course, such structural views link corruption to capitalism and even anticorruption to the political superstructural task of maintaining legitimacy and stability for capitalist accumulation (a view expressed nicely by Girling 1997; see also Di Tella and MacCulloch 2009; Djankov et al. 2002; Przeworski and Wallerstein 1988). Beyond this Marxist undertone, the leitmotif of the contemporary leftist approach to corruption—and greatest contrast to right/orthodox views—tends to center on definitions and constructions of corruption.7 Generally, those on the left tend to embrace broader and more dynamic definitions of corruption that look beyond the behavior of state officials and beyond legal and personal gain criteria. Some, particularly anthropologists, even discount the importance of defining corruption (Smith 2007). Such expanded constructions tend to draw heightened attention to distinct forms of corruption and shape different perspectives, theoretical insights, and recommendations for reform. At one level, many define corruption in such a way as to broaden the scope of those involved beyond state officials. They do this largely by questioning the meaning, validity, and precision of the public/private dichotomy that lies at the heart of most definitions of corruption. This helps train greater attention on corruption specifically within the private sector, the influence of economic power over state officials, the alliance of economic and political elites, policies

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involving public-private partnerships, and policies privileging economic interests (see Sandoval-Ballesteros 2013a). Warren (2004, 332), for example, argues that a broader definition of corruption should extend to any person or group in a position enabling them to make use of a collective power or make collective decisions; that we should broaden the notion of corruption so that it includes not just the state, but also any collectivity with control over resources that people need or want, including controls over collective judgment (media) and control over economic resources (economy). In contrast to the more orthodox approach, this perspective often tends to cast the business sector as more agent than victim of corruption. Others broaden the concept even more by depicting corruption not as a form of individual behavior but rather as systemic. Mark Warren (2004, 331), for instance, assails the individualist approach because it makes it difficult to conceive of “institutional corruption in which covert norms of exchange within an institution—access in exchange for campaign donations, for example—corrupt the overt purposes of the institution.” As Lawrence Lessig (2011, 231) notes, “It is not individuals who are corrupt within a well-functioning institution. It is instead an institution that has been corrupted.” Dennis Thompson (2013, 15) echoes this point: “We need to move beyond the focus on individual corruption that has preoccupied social scientists, political reformers, and ethics committees, and attend to the institutional corruption they have neglected. We have to turn from the stark land of bribery, extortion, and simple personal gain and enter into the shadowy world of implicit understandings, ambiguous favors, and political advantage.” Such institutional—or systemic—views of corruption build on or resurrect the historic, classical understanding of corruption offered by Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Rousseau as a collective state.8 Grounded in republican theory (Bukovansky 2006, 199), this systemic view characterizes corruption in terms of the relationship linking leaders to followers, the leaders’ ability to claim the loyalty of followers, the overall morality of the society and its rulers, and even the presence or absence of civic virtue.9 What Dobel (1978) refers to as the “corruption of a state,” Thompson (2018) as institutional corruption, and Sandoval-Ballesteros (2013a) as structural corruption, such systemic views tend to define corruption: (1) with reference to the properties of the institutions and state-society relations rather than the behavior of individuals; and (2) in terms of the privileging of particularistic interests over those of the common interest (see also Euben

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1989). A systemic view of corruption highlights more the context of individual actions, training our attention on whether the state and state institutions operate in ways consistent with the purposes that justify their existence (and imbue them with authority). Sandoval-Ballesteros (2013a, 9, 11), for instance, defines structural corruption as a specific form of social domination characterized by abuse, simulation, and misappropriation of resources arising from a pronounced differential in structural power: a highly sophisticated organized system that . . . links lower and mid-level extortions, payoffs, bribes, etc. within a complete pyramidal structure of clientelism, institutionalized patronage, and impunity.

Second, the left’s conceptualization tends to reject the law as the primary criterion to define corruption. As Robert Williams (1999, 505; cited in Mendilow 2016, 4–5) affirms: “Using only legal criteria to define corruption is to endorse the authority of the strong rather than the just” and to divorce corruption from its normative foundations. After all, the law or the rules themselves can be the product of corruption—particularly in the case of systemic corruption—and/or may be designed specifically by the political elite to provide a framework to protect or facilitate activities most might condemn as corrupt.10 By itself, the simple rejection of a legal criterion to define corruption gives way to the notion of legal forms of corruption (Dincer and Johnston 2014; Funderburk 2012; Kaufmann and Vicente 2011; Mendilow 2016; Rothstein 2011, ch. 10; Selds 2014). Noting how both law-based and public sector–geared definitions of corruption obscure the role of private-sector actors, Casas-Zamora and Carter (2017, 8) claim how such approaches leave out cases of distortions of public interest by legal acts such as elite capture and by way of the legislative process; what Daniel Kaufmann (2005, 82) refers to as the “privatization of public policy.” Particularly well represented in the analysis of corruption in the United States, the idea of legal corruption further expands the scope of corruption and sheds greater attention on corruption among decisionmakers at the input side of the political system and the role of the private sector in shaping those decisions.11 In rejecting the legal criterion, critics have proffered other criteria to define corruption. Citing the republican view of democracy expressed by Aristotle in Politics (Book III) and Cicero’s De Re Publica, many cast the “public interest” or “common good” as the primary criterion (Mungiu-Pippidi 2020, 91). For individual forms of corruption, this conceptual approach equates corruption to acts by public

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officials that violate the public interest for private gain (see Vergara 2020, ch. 2). For systemic forms of corruption, the criterion echoes Aristotle’s differentiation among corrupt and noncorrupt political systems in which the former pursues private as opposed to public interests. From this broad perspective, corruption involves the tendency for rulers to ignore the claims of the community and/or to prioritize their own immediate advantage over the needs of the collective. As such, corruption relates to the breakdown of civic loyalty and civic virtue, and to the privatization of moral concerns (Dobel 1978, 960). Still others, rejecting both the legal and the broad public-interest criteria, point to other conceptual boundaries to delineate corruption. While not all these views necessarily align with the left’s vision of democracy, they nonetheless offer a more expansive scope of the concept of corruption. Some, such as Kurer (2005), Mungiu-Pippidi (2016, 2020), and Rothstein and Teorell (2008), for example, define corruption as the violation of the norm of universality, ethical universalism, or nondiscrimination in the distribution of rights and obligations by public officials. Such norms, they note, prohibit public officials from discriminating in favor of those who are socially close (nepotism, favoritism) or able to pay the highest price (bribery). Others tap fundamental principles of democracy to define corruption. Berg et al. (1976, 3), for instance, rejecting the legal definition because legality is determined by the politically powerful, define corruption as “any behavior which ‘violates and undermines the norms of the system of public order which is deemed indispensable for the maintenance of political democracy.’”12 In a somewhat similar manner, Warren (2004, 2006), focusing on the meaning of corruption in a democracy, points to what he refers to as the violation of second-order norms. Distinct from first-order norms that are stated explicitly in the law, second-order norms refer to the rather ambiguous principles that should guide the making of policy within a democracy, including fairness, justice, equality, and democratic inclusiveness. He then goes on to define corruption within a democracy as involving the duplicitous or deceptive exclusion of those affected by state decisions from having any influence over those decisions. Such duplicitous exclusion is corrupt, he stresses, because it violates a key and fundamental principle of democracy.13 Similarly, Thompson (2013) refers to political corruption as “a condition in which private interests distort public purposes by influencing the government in disregard of the democratic process.” This formulation points to two guiding and defining principles: the dis-

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tortion of public purposes, and the disregard of the democratic process. In a subsequent analysis, Thompson (2018) further differentiates four models of institutional corruption based on alternative criteria, including the democratic process (Thompson), the principle of equality (Warren 2004, 2006), autonomy (Miller 2010, 2017), and the Constitution (Lessig 2011, 2013). Finally, in addition to expanding the scope of corruption, shining light on other forms of corruption and offering institutional and systemic constructions of corruption, the left also tends to question the emphasis on personal gain criteria as the chief motive feeding corruption. While seemingly all definitions of corruption include some reference to personal gain (thus implicitly highlighting greed as a causal factor), some analysts go beyond personal gain to associate corruption more with broader particularistic gains, including the pursuit of political and/or institutional objectives (Thompson 2013, 2018). Defining corruption based on the theoretical position that assumes that politicians should promote the common good or the public interest (and that such a thing exists), Etzioni (2014), for example, differentiates three types of corruption: (1) corruption as the illegal use of public power for personal gain; (2) a broader definition as illegal use of power for private gain, which includes personal gain and illegal deflection of public goods to advance the causes and coffers of private (special interest) groups; and, finally, (3) legal but illicit (or unethical) conduct as “use of public power and resources for legal but illicit purposes,” including political gain. It is worth noting that others, particularly anthropologists, go a bit further and in fact question all efforts to define corruption. They not only stress these inherent problems identified in the literature but, more importantly, point to the contested and constituted nature of the concept and the variation in cultural understandings among local populations. From the constructivist and anthropological perspectives, the definition of corruption is not as important as features of the phenomenon: the question of power, relationships to public authorities, and corruption’s perceived purpose and function for those below (see Makowski 2016). Similarly, some sociological perspectives focus on corruption in neutral terms as problem solving (see Tanzler et al. 2016). Summing (the summary) to this point, in contrast to the orthodox definition of corruption, these diverse constructions tend to expand the meaning of corruption to facilitate some or greater attention to “political” corruption (violation of second-order norms) as opposed to

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“administrative” or “bureaucratic” corruption (violation of first-order norms), legal corruption in addition to illegal corruption, the role of the private sector in addition to just state officials, corruption in developed nations in addition to developing ones, institutions and systems rather than corrupt conduct, and political in addition to personal gain. As one might expect, theoretical explanations of corruption that stem from these alternate formulations of corruption and the critiques of the orthodox understanding also expand the scope of explanations. Many of these alternate views, however, as noted, do not necessarily align with or echo positions associated with the left. As with the orthodox approach, many analysts offering alternate definitions, such as ethical universalism, still concentrate on the issues of transparency, accountability, oversight, detection, and punishment within state institutions. Going beyond a basic PA approach, some note how the principal within the PA formula may not in fact be interested in curbing corruption (an unprincipled principal) but actually benefit from it. Such a view better facilitates attention to the notion of state capture and how the principal uses the agent for personal or political gain. Particularly given how state capture highlights state-society interactions and often the role of economic interests, this theme enjoys substantial attention by scholars in this camp. Perhaps the most prominent theoretical response coming out of a questioning of the orthodox PA view sees corruption as a collectiveaction dilemma (see Marquette and Peiffer 2015, 2018; MungiuPippidi 2013; Persson et al. 2013).14 But rather than explaining the existence of corruption, collective-action theories explain how and why corruption persists as a result of the popular expectations about the existence and role of corruption in society and the problems people encounter when refusing to follow existing practices. Especially where corruption is systemic, the expectation of corruption and its quotidian use to resolve everyday problems together fashion perceptions of how others will act, thus creating informal norms of reciprocity (Persson et al. 2013; OECD 2018, 29). This, in turn, shapes attitudes and behavior, including the loss of civic virtue. “The loss of the sense of civic duty and loyalty means that the ‘primary attitude among citizens is wary competition to preserve what one possesses and to gain more if possible’” (Mendilow and Peleg 2014, 13). This is not just among the people but also describes the situation facing public officials. Geddes (1991, 1994), for example, highlights the “politicians dilemma”: that while reforming clientelism and implementing a professional bureau-

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cracy would theoretically benefit all, early adopters run the risk of facing defeat and losing power to those who do not engage in reform and continue to enjoy the gains of clientelism. This dilemma cripples the prospects of reform. Scholars focusing on the US system of campaign finance also highlight this dilemma. In setting out his concept of dependence corruption, for example, Lessig (2013, 15) points out how “the sin of a Congress[wo]man within such a system is not that she raises campaign money. It is that she doesn’t work to change the corruption that this dependence upon a small set of funders has produced.” Of course, if she did, she would be at a distinct disadvantage against those who continue to operate and benefit from the system. But collective action theories help explain the persistence of corruption and the failures of reform, not the underlying causes of corruption. It helps explain corruption’s stickiness, or what Pranab Bardhan (1997, 1331; cited in Rothstein 2009, 6) refers to as the “frequency-dependent equilibria” wherein “expected gain from corruption depends crucially on the number of other people we expect to be corrupt.” These theories also help account for the coexistence of a morality-denouncing corruption—something inherent to the concept— amid its widespread practice. According to Rasma Karklins (2005; cited in Rothstein 2009, 8), “ordinary people” in corrupt systems do not internalize corrupt practices as morally legitimate acts. Instead, they usually condemn corruption as morally wrong and put the blame on “the system” for forcing them to take part in corruption. In many ways, the more prominent theoretical approach among the left focuses on economic and political structure. On the one hand, this approach tends to agree with the orthodox emphasis on the role of democracy in countering corruption while embracing a more republican view of democracy. Accordingly, popular participation is deemed necessary in order to counter the influence of the private sector that currently enjoys privilege and influence over the state. For some on the left, of course, capitalism itself challenges true democracy.15 On the other hand, this approach does not share the orthodox emphasis on neoliberal economics. Instead, the left orientation tends to locate corruption within the political and economic inequalities crafted by free-market economies and the structural power of capital over the state. Echoing the views of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and even Marx, this approach tends to view corruption as growing out of the extensive and self-reinforcing inequalities of wealth and political power that create oligarchy and erode the moral

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commitments to the common welfare. This includes theoretical views tying corruption structurally to inequality (Dincer and Gunlap 2012; Dutta and Mishra 2013; Hellman and Kaufmann 2002; Loveless 2017; Uslaner 2008; Uslaner and Rothstein 2013) and capitalism (“Corrupción, capitalismo y democracia” 2020; Girling 1997; González Casanova 2007; Sandoval-Ballesteros 2013a). Seeing the economic elite under capitalism as enjoying privileged access to influence the state and state policies (Johnston 2005) or secure the duplicitous exclusion of those sectors affected by the state’s decisions, capitalism reproduces and benefits from certain forms of corruption. Indeed, when asked whether corruption is a systematic part of a neoliberal capitalist system, for example, one observer from Guatemala avers that “the business class in our countries has grown into a parasite of the state. It’s not an independent business class, but rather feeds off the state” (Cies 2019).16 As with the orthodox/right thinking, the suggested anticorruption remedies by the left stem largely from their conceptual and theoretical postures. With a particular focus on the structural problems that facilitate state capture, especially the influence of the economic elite over the state and public policy, many stress the various institutional reforms needed to break that hold and rupture the bonds. This includes institutional reforms to the system of campaign finance, the regulation and control of lobbying, the revolving door, transparency, the opening of congresses and regulatory agencies to public oversight, and other reforms designed to prevent those with money from overly shaping policy. While there are similarities to the solutions proposed by the orthodox/right, arguably the scope of the recommendations by the left goes further. Fundamentally, the left’s focus on institutional corruption and structural factors produces an emphasis on greatly expanding popular participation to check and balance power by strengthening or deepening democracy (Johnston 2014). This includes notions of proactive transparency and rule of law as a part of an expansive vision of democracy (Ackerman 2006; Sandoval-Ballesteros 2013b). Even as the left embraces a broader notion of what constitutes corruption than the right and may focus on other forms of corruption outside the orthodoxy, they nonetheless still seem to acknowledge many of the traditional problems associated with bureaucratic forms of corruption and hence the more orthodox reforms centered on transparency, professionalization of the bureaucracy, greater oversight, and administrative simplification. Where the two seem to part

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company, however, is with reference to the role of neoliberal reforms and a reduction of the state as a means to reduce the opportunities for rents. Rather than seeing a reduction of the state and concomitant expansion of the free market as helping to reduce corruption, the left categorically sees these as problematic and even as a form of corruption, necessitating greater state controls over the economy and a reining in of the influence of the economic elite. Critiques of the Left

Critiques of the leftist approach to corruption/anticorruption are fewer and less developed than those targeting the orthodox/right. This is understandable given the left’s still-limited role in shaping the global or national debates and policies. Still, a number of problems emerge when taking the broad approach painted by the left, particularly among the conceptualizations touting the public interest as the key definitional criterion. These include, first, the difficulties involved in actually defining or specifying what the public interest is and whether such a thing as the public interest even exists.17 Second, many contend that corruption based on some vague notion of the public interest and particularly variant constructions of legal corruption, institutional corruption, and structural corruption are not only too broad but also fail to draw a clear distinction between legitimate and illegitimate (corrupt) behavior. Many dismiss the notion of legal or institutional corruption because the practices are part of the normal political process itself. 18 The theory of pluralism not only acknowledges the pursuit of special or particularistic interests as good—the means to achieving broader objectives—but also creates a system of checks and counterweights against abuses.19 Finally, similar to the critiques of the orthodox/right, many analysts assail these alternative views on corruption as ideological and even part of a populist attack on capitalism and representative democracy. In this view, the emphasis on legal, institutional, or structural corruption raises what are ultimately political rather than technical questions regarding good governance.

Ideological Alignments Many of the ideas reviewed here seem to neatly align with the left and right. Owing to its tendency to conceptualize corruption in terms of the

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rents created by state intervention distorting market forces, its emphasis on corruption within the public sector and within developing countries and the forms of corruption of greatest impact on business, its reliance on modernization theory, and its support of neoliberal economic reforms, what is labelled here as the orthodox/right view all seem to share or align with the right’s concern with how state intervention in the economy undermines development, threatens individual liberty, and fosters corruption. It shares with the right the notion that sees politics (and the state) as perhaps inherently corrupt: a view that, in turn, leads to a minimalist vision of the state (Johnston 2014). Such views and recommendations, moreover, seek to depoliticize corruption by making it a neutral term referring to the violation of the law and by casting remedies as technocratic (objective, rational) solutions. Whereas these views stress the rule of law for a well-functioning market democracy, seek to strengthen state institutions to prevent the abuse of power, and call for much-needed reforms, they also seem to align with views that embrace the ideal political and economic systems of the Western powers and support for the status quo. As such, they offer a particular understanding of corruption that seemingly dismisses other forms of corruption—like legal and institutional corruption— that, others contend, benefit the status quo. Such views, moreover, seem to align with a more Madisonian vision of democracy whereby popular participation remains somewhat constrained, and where the corrupting influence of economic inequality is overcome through pluralism, civil society, institutional checks and balances and voting. As noted, not only do such systems privilege the status quo, making change difficult, but the power of the orthodox/right over the international anticorruption agenda also seems to promote a certain understanding of corruption/anticorruption at the international level, thereby helping to preserve and protect the global status quo. Similarly, there are certain ideas on corruption that seem to align well with the ideological left. The notion of state capture by the economic elite and the state’s structural dependency on capitalist interests are reminiscent of Marxist and post-Marxist thinking. The amplified concern for the involvement of the private sector in corruption, the rejection of neoliberal reforms not only on ideological grounds but as either a form of corruption itself or contributing to it (see López Obrador 2017; Sandoval-Ballesteros 2018), and the emphasis on inequality as the structural root of corruption all seem to neatly align with the left’s emphasis on social justice, the central role of the state to

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broaden opportunities, and the need to strengthen grassroots democracy. At the same time, the emphasis on broader forms of corruption that include legal corruption, institutional corruption, and structural corruption similarly seem to align with the left’s emphasis on a more republican version of democracy that privileges the public interest over particularistic interests. As with many of the definitions on the left, the republican versions of democracy also embrace the notion of corruption as a system that undermines the functioning of state institutions and the state itself, not simply individual conduct. The left’s emphasis on deepening democracy by enhancing the role of the public beyond elections also seems to align with the republican view that prioritizes “the people” and encourages civic duty. The structural approach emphasizing inequality of economic and political power offers a clearer alignment to the left’s emphasis of a state privileging the interests of the economic elite to the detriment of the public interest, on the needs to strengthen the state, and even state intervention in the economy to promote social justice and deepen democracy. Many such views also share with the ideological left an indictment of politics-asusual and the status quo, including its critiques of the orthodox thinking on corruption. Finally, there seems to exist a certain degree of disagreement and polarization among the views and ideas on corruption/anticorruption: a partial reflection of the broader ideological split. While all contribute to our understanding of corruption and in so many ways can be seen as complementary, there is, nonetheless, ample criticism of the “other” side. As with the right and left more generally, many scholars from the left have become outspoken and harsh in their attacks, accusing their colleagues representing orthodox/right ideas as contributing to the corruption that maintains the privileges of the status quo at the national level and, particularly, at the international level. Though less pointedly, the right similarly tends to dismiss some of the left’s views as misguided and less than useful, at times marginalizing them from the debate. Just as many on the left see the neoliberal reforms, measures offered by the right to tackle corruption, as either a form of corruption itself or at least contributing to it, some on the right see the leftist views as unleashing reforms that threaten the institutional checks and balances that guard against corruption. Such a move, they contend, weakens democracy and promotes rather than cripples corruption (see Kossow 2019). In this sense, the ideas align with and reflect the traditional left/right polarizations.

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In certain ways, of course, the two talk past each other. Corruption is certainly a broad enough concept and takes on so many different forms that the two may, in some ways, just be talking about different forms or dimensions of corruption. On the one hand, what are considered “normal” forms of corruption (illegal acts by government officials like bribery and graft) tend to undermine the left’s argument for a larger state role while bolstering the right’s position that the state is inherently corrupt and the state’s role should thus remain limited. Yet, on the other hand, other forms of corruption, such as legal, institutional, and structural corruption, undermine the right’s argument for a limited state role since it empowers and privileges private capitalist interests, bolstering the left’s contention that greater state controls are needed to limit the influence of wealth over power. Still, to reiterate, not all the ideas explored neatly fit either right or left. It is more difficult to recognize any clear or direct linkages with what have become rather mainstream ideas associated with ideas of ethical universalism, collective action theories, or theories focusing on organizations. Though they tend to share with the left an emphasis on systemic corruption and a questioning of the institutional approach embedded within the more orthodox PA framework, shifting attention more to the role of the public, the alignment is loose at best. Such views may provide a better fit for a more expansive or evolving orthodoxy of corruption. In a similar manner, rather than a complete rejection of the orthodox/ right, many of the ideas aligned with the left encompass much of the orthodox/right thinking. In this sense, it is a question of emphasis and a broadening of the scope of corruption. The left’s emphasis on institutional, legal structural corruption, or simply political corruption, for instance, does not mean to suggest that the administrative, illegal bureaucratic corruption emphasized by the orthodox/right does not exist or is unimportant. Even the left’s emphasis on institutional and structural problems does not mean that institutional design, transparency, oversight, discretion, sanctions, and the like are not important. Similarly, many of those contributing to the orthodox/right views openly acknowledge some of the criticisms from the left and denounce such practices involved in legal corruption. By way of conclusion, Table 2.1 offers an overview of the key differences among the left and orthodox/right approaches and understandings of corruption.

43 Table 2.1 Left

Ideological Alignment of Corruption/Anticorruption in the Literature Areas of Comparison

Right

State captured by bourgeoisie Extreme corruption or serving bourgeois interests. Use of superstructure and even limited state autonomy to ensure stability of the capitalist system, and hegemony of liberal ideas and limited forms of democracy.

Neopatrimonial state captured by authoritarian or totalitarian forces that monopolize economic opportunities. No rule of law, no private property.

Greater emphasis on political Type/ over administrative corruption location of corruption (violation of second-order norms), legal and institutional corruption, on the role of the private sector, and collusion of private sector and government officials.

Greater emphasis on administrative corruption (violation of first-order norms), illegal forms of corruption, and corruption within the state. Tends to see corruption as largely synonymous with bribery.

Tends toward a public-interest- Definition/conceptual based definition. Often focused not on individual acts, but systemic and structural features. Rooted in exclusion or privileged access, impartiality, etc. Includes notion of legal corruption.

Tends more toward a legalbased definition and as an individual act taking place within the state for personal gain. Emphasis on officials maximizing utility and cost/benefit analysis of opportunities for corruption.

Emphasis on corruption within developed countries as well as developing countries.

Emphasis on corruption within developing countries.

Sees business as agent rather than victim.

Sees business as victim at the hands of venal state officials and corruption as undermining business interests.

Greater emphasis on structural Theoretical framework Greater emphasis on the factors shaping state/society normative and institutional relations, particularly the factors that facilitate impact of economic inequality bureaucratic corruption by on influencing political power. shaping incentives based on PA theory and economic institutionalism. Sees such incentives as deviation from the free market.

continues

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Table 2.1 Left

Continued

Areas of Comparison

In addition to standard/ Anticorruption orthodox bureaucratic reforms, greater emphasis on expansion of public participation and a deepening of democracy. Includes institutional reforms on the input side of the system to enhance representation and popular oversight of political decisionmaking.

Right

Institutional reforms that eliminate the incentives for corruption by state officials, including transparency, deregulation, bureaucratic simplification, greater oversight, merit-based bureaucracy, and improved investigations and sanctions. Also, competitive democracy, institutional checks, and limited state distortions of economic freedoms (neoliberal reforms).

Critical of orthodox view as Conceptual/theoretical Tends to see the definitions reflecting the interests of the critique of the “other” of corruption by the “left” as too broad; that the defiprivate sector, particularly nitions fail to adequately international business, and the differentiate corruption status quo. from normal politics. Attacks orthodox/right views See leftist reforms as disas anti-state, anti-South, mantling of institutional neoimperialistic, and part of checks and balances the effort to impose neoliberal designed to guard against reforms. corruption, thereby heightening the dangers of corFails to adequately address ruption. Cast many of the corruption that has greatest formulas as populist. impact on the people. Anthropology, political science, sociology.

Main disciplines

Economics, economic psychology, political science, organizational studies.

Conclusion The vast literature on corruption shows a wide mix of definitions, conceptualizations, theoretical approaches, and recommendations. In this initial look at the ideas on corruption/anticorruption, the analysis points to apparent differences that seem to align rather neatly with the left and the right. Though perhaps offered here as ideal types, the differences echo ideological concerns about the role of the state in the economy, the control of the capitalist class over the state, differ-

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ent visions of democracy, and different goals. At least from the standpoint of the literature, the notion of corruption has multiple meanings and understandings. In many ways, despite a shared overriding concern about corruption and even agreement on its pernicious effects, scholars are not necessarily talking about the same thing or fail to recognize its sheer breadth. * * *

Continuing with ideas on corruption/anticorruption, the next chapter explores ideas found within the rhetoric of politicians. Though politicians likely pay limited attention to the scholarly literature, the theme of corruption dominates campaign platforms and speeches. This is particularly true in recent years. With corruption high atop the agenda and a major concern among voters, politicians go to lengths to describe what they mean by corruption and what it will take to fight it. As we will see, as with the literature, many of these ideas align ideologically with the left and the right.

Notes 1. While most people accept the notion that corruption benefits those involved and harms others (Warren 2006, 804), the functionalist view of corruption dating to the 1960s suggests that corruption could be beneficial to society as a whole, particularly in terms of facilitating development and stability (see Huntington 1968; Leff 1964; Scott 1972). More recent analysis also points to how certain forms of corruption provide positive effects on economic development (see Khan 1998). 2. Welzel and Inglehart (2008) point to a version of modernization theory that refers to how economic development increases individuals’ resources, self-expression values, and demands on the political system. Broadly, modernization theory encompasses Merton needs-end theory, Banfiled’s amoral familism, theories relating to religion (see Lipset and Lenz 2001), and social trust and social capital theory (Rothstein and Eek 2009). All point to the rise of factors leading to the decline of corruption. 3. According to Tanzler et al.’s (2016) systems theory, modernization leads to the development of independent subsystems. Corruption represents a violation of that independence. In short, when external factors intrude and distort the logic of the functional independency, it diverts the system from fulfilling its functional mandates (like when economic logic intrudes into the political system and distorts the purpose of a policy). 4. On anticorruption specifically see, for example, Galtung (1998); Hough (2013); Kpundeh and Hors (1997); Johnston (2014); Johnston and Fritzen (2020); Mungiu-Pippidi and Johnston (2017); Sousa et al. (2009); Rotberg (2020); Sampson (2010); and Taylor (2018). 5. Efforts to define corruption have perennially sparked debate. For a small taste of the debate, see Alemann (2004); Andersson and Heywood (2009); Heidenheimer (1970); Heidenheimer and Johnston (2002); Johnston (1996, 2004); Kurer (2005); Offe (2004); Philip (1997); Warren (2004).

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6. Much of the study shifted the focus slightly to concentrate on good governance as opposed to corruption. Although good governance can be understood as merely the absence of corruption, there seems to be more agreement on the principles and norms of good governance (see Charron and Lapuente 2009; Mungiu-Pippidi and Johnston 2017; Mungiu-Pippidi 2020; Rothstein 2011). 7. On the role of discourse in the social construction of (il)legitimacy and power relationships, see Foucault (1969); Humphreys and Brown (2007); Philips et al. (2004); and Vaara and Tienari (2002, 2008). 8. In Book III of Politics (1996 book III, 1279, cited in Wallis 2006, 29–33), Aristotle depicts corruption not as an act but rather as a government focused on “rule with a view to the private interest.” A rightful form of government, he specifies, is to promote the common interest. Cicero in De Re Publica also claimed that the government must serve the good of the people (cited in Mungiu-Pippidi 2020, 91). Machiavelli and Hobbes, by contrast, provide a sort of philosophical foundation for the political uses of corruption. Removing morality from politics, both were concerned more about power, preventing chaos and warfare than about justice and the truth. In fact, for Hobbes’s social contract, the sovereign stands above the law. For an excellent overview of the views on constitutionalist thought, see Vergara (2020). 9. Many today embrace this systemic approach (see Dobel 1978). Michael Johnston (2004), for example, suggests we focus not on specific acts, but instead on systemic questions regarding the boundaries and distinctions that exist between public and private domains, and the unacceptable uses and connections linking wealth to power. 10. The problem, in short, is that the legal approach seems to substitute or confuse the source of corruption’s meaning (the law) with its actual meaning. It suggests we look to the law to discover what corruption is, but it does not really say much about the nature of the norms that define corruption or explain why such laws exist. 11. In his discussion about defining quality of government, Agnafors (2013) points to a similar problem in that existing approaches tend to apply only to the “output” side of government and thus fail to take into account the law and the moral dimensions of the law. 12. In considering the legal/illegal aspect of corruption, Bennedsen et al. (2009, 5) draw a distinction between influence and corruption, with influence being legal and corruption being illegal. With attention on whether corporations employ influence or corruption, their study shows “that strong firms use their influence to bend laws and regulations, whereas weak firms pay bribes to mitigate the costs of government intervention.” As such, they show that corruption and lobbying at the firm level are generally substitutes—if government officials are responsive to business interests, there is little need to be corrupt; if not, then firms may seek ways around the rules using corruption. In this scenario, influence has longer-lasting effects and has universal benefits while corruption has a shorter time horizon and particular benefits. On how the concentration of power shapes the form of corruption see Morris (2021a). 13. This notion somewhat parallels earlier views by Leff (1964) and Scott (1972), who characterized corruption as an illegitimate form of political influence that allows particular groups to “participate in the decision making process to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case” (Leff 1964, 8). 14. One of the major problems with theories is that they rarely distinguish between different forms of corruption (Bauhr 2017, 562). 15. According to “Corrupcíon, capitalismo y democrácia” (2020), “when the laws are changed or written in accordance with the money that flows to legislators, when the different parties and candidates all represent the same policy programs and class interests, when those candidates and parties behave more as merchants of the vote than representatives of an alternative program, or when elections are won by whoever

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has the most money to buy votes, pay publicity or manipulate consciousness, then we cannot speak of real democracy, at least not one that serves the majority.” 16. Contributions from anthropology, cognitive psychology, and organizational studies further enrich the theoretical understanding of corruption. Offering a more holistic approach, “anthropologists look at meanings and interpretations of various societies” (Fiske-Rusciano 2014, 248), focusing on discourse, on how societies construct power, the state and corruption, and on the functionality of corruption in everyday life (Hasty 2005; Gupta 2005; Muir and Gupta 2018; Smith 2007; Torsello and Venard 2016). Cognitive psychology theories of corruption concentrate on microlevel explanations that go beyond RC theory. Building on a critique of the assumptions in RC theory regarding motivations, these studies highlight the role cognitive biases play in shaping individual decisions (see, for instance, Dupuy and Neset 2018; Kish-Gephart et al. 2010). Organizational theory, in turn, focuses more on the immediate environment wherein corruption occurs. Organizational scholars refer to corruption not only as a state of misuse but as a process—the gradual institutionalization of misbehavior that becomes normalized—part of what Ashforth and Anand (2003) refer to as a “culture of corruption” and Arellano Gault (2017) denotes as social logic rooted in social relationships (see also Breit et al. 2015). Again, not all these ideas clearly align with the ideological left. 17. Despite its underlying logic and inherent appeal, such broad notions of corruption seem to conflate consequence with definition, forcing us to determine the impact of an act or systemic operation before being able to actually classify it as a form of corruption. Such a view prevents us from even asking theoretically whether corruption might have beneficial effects or be functional—as some once argued— since by serving public interests they would therefore no longer meet the standard of being classified as corrupt. It also makes it impossible to define corruption before the fact, thus creating a post-hoc definition. But it also raises a crucial question: does a public interest–centered definition refer to the actual, objective consequences of the act or outcome or does it relate more to the perceived consequences based on the intentions of the actors involved? This raises the question of whether conscious intent is necessary for corruption to occur. 18. The danger in broadening a concept such as corruption is that if it includes almost everything, it includes nothing. Indeed, part of the question for any concept is how to distinguish it from neighboring or related concepts (Gerring 2011). But differentiating corruption from noncorruption or even normal politics or from neighboring concepts is difficult. Even when using the law to define corruption, the concept still encroaches on and actually becomes embedded within such neighboring concepts as democracy and the rule of law since, like corruption, both the rule of law and democracy establish normative limits on what state officials can and cannot do. Just a minimalist definition (Raz 1979) of the rule of law means that state officials must abide by the law and respect certain predefined limits on the use of power. And indeed, many if not most acts of corruption (depending ultimately on how we define the concept) violate the rule of law, suggesting that corruption is embedded with our notion of the rule of law. In similar manner, democracy limits the power of state officials. At its most fundamental level and again just using a minimalist definition, democracy limits what mechanisms can be used to select political leaders (elections), what the state can and cannot do with respect to certain basic freedoms associated with the procedures of selecting leaders (speech, the press, religion, association, etc.), and even the procedures that must be followed to create, administer, and adjudicate the law. More substantive definitions of both rule of law and democracy go even further by detailing not only how political decisions and the law are to be made but why and for what outcome. “Democracy’s sweeping discretionary powers must operate through some set of decision rules and may not be used to violate core rights and periodic elections”

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(Alexander 2002, 1159). Indeed, as Fukuyama (2011, 15) acknowledges, “Modern democracy was born when rulers acceded to formal rules limiting their power.” Corruption, broadly conceived, is violating those formal rules. For a fuller development of this argument, see Morris (2021b). 19. Noting how the term corruption has come to be used simply to condemn behavior that “violates the speaker’s values,” Rose-Ackerman (2018, 98) addresses the conceptual confusion and builds an argument against broad definitions. She illustrates her concerns by highlighting the ambiguous cases of corruption in the areas of campaign finance, lobbying, and conflict of interest. As she correctly notes, it is exceedingly difficult to separate “normal” politics from the ambiguous cases of corruption. Her preference, of course, is to restrict the term to when “an official charged with a public responsibility operates in his or her own interest in a way that undermines the program’s aims’ (99) and exclude from the definition institutional and personal failures and the creation of nonvirtuous goals of public policy. Chayes (2020, 9), by contrast, ridicules the US Supreme Court ruling in the case of McDonnell v. U.S. (2016) overturning the conviction for allowing what most would acknowledge as corrupt behavior to pass as normal politics.

3 Political Rhetoric in the Americas

THIS CHAPTER TURNS TO THE POLITICAL NARRATIVE. IT presents two comparative analyses. The first contrasts the national development plans (PND for its initials in Spanish) of former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018) of the center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the current leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024) of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). Presented soon after taking office, the PND is considered the fundamental guiding document that lays out the president’s vision, understanding of the nation’s problems, and general strategies for change. It maps presidential priorities and policy approaches and represents a sort of intermediate point between the rhetoric of the campaign and actual governmental policies. Given Mexico’s long struggles with entrenched corruption, both documents address the problem and the struggle against it. As with the prior chapter, the two most recent PNDs exhibit clear left/right differences, revealing that the two leaders were not really referring to the same thing. The second comparative analysis brings populism into the equation, examining campaign platforms, writings, and speeches of four prominent politicians from the hemisphere: the current right-wing Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro; the current leftist Mexican president, López Obrador; the two-time US presidential candidate and leftist senator Bernie Sanders; and the right-wing US president Donald Trump. With intense public attention to corruption during the 2016 US 49

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election and the 2018 elections in Brazil and Mexico, all four of these candidates employed populist tropes to make corruption/anticorruption a salient campaign theme. Nonetheless, clear left/right (left-populist and right-populist) differences remain that build on the findings from the prior chapter and the first section of the current chapter. Both comparative sections seek to capture these politicians’ understanding of corruption/anticorruption based on an analysis of texts and speeches. Analytical attention highlights the use of the term (an indication of the concept’s importance), the implied or expressed meaning of the term (how corruption is understood or defined), the context (as a major issue area, the form of corruption or a particular social setting where it occurs), the related stories or explanations used to describe the term (underlying ideas or associations expressing why corruption occurs or its direct or indirect impact on other areas), and expressions of policy approaches (mechanisms and tools to combat corruption). As such, it draws on the basic principles of interpretive and discourse analysis (see Guo and Liu 2016; Van Dijk 1997; Wodak and Meyer 2001).

Peña Nieto and López Obrador in Mexico Analysis begins by examining the national development plans of Mexico’s two most recent presidents: Enrique Peña Nieto and Ándres Manuel López Obrador. As noted, the PND lays out the president’s vision, understanding of the nation’s problems, and general strategies for change. This includes a focus on corruption/anticorruption. Corruption/Anticorruption of Peña Nieto

In Peña Nieto’s 184-page PND (Government of Mexico 2013), published soon after taking office on December 1, 2012, corruption is mentioned twenty times, for an average of 0.109 mentions per page. The first mention is not found until page 21. Contextually the document tends to present corruption as an individual form of conduct engaged in by state officials owing to institutional failures, and as a problem undermining the nation’s security and an obstacle to business. Efforts to fight corruption thus focus on reforms to the justice system, a strengthening of both preventive and punitive measures within the state bureaucracy, and administrative simplification. Peña Nieto’s PND portrays corruption chiefly as a problem affecting the nation’s security. The document’s first mention of corruption

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refers to “el combate a la corrupción” (p. 21) as part of the first of five goals under the heading “Un México en Paz” [A Mexico at Peace]. In supporting his claim linking corruption to security issues, he twice points to the belief that corruption is widespread within the justice system (pp. 29 and 34). Later, in the section dedicated to “lines of action” under Strategy 1.4.3, one of three areas emphasizing the justice system, he points to the need for transparency within the criminal justice system, with greater involvement of society and media. In addition to an emphasis on corruption within the context of undermining security within the justice system, the document also links corruption to institutional or bureaucratic problems. Under the heading “Rendición de Cuentas y Combate a la Corrupción” (p. 37) [Accountability and Combatting Corruption], Peña Nieto refers to deficiencies in documentation, problems in budgeting and evaluations, and institutional fragmentation. Consistent with the orthodox institutional approach to corruption, he notes how a reactive approach based solely on prosecutions and punitive measures is insufficient and that the fight against corruption requires preventive measures (p. 40). The discussion also makes clear that corruption is considered a form of individual conduct practiced primarily within the public administration. Under Strategy 1.4.3, the document spells out a number of lines of action, including the creation of an autonomous body specialized in applying the law of administrative responsibilities, a more professional civil service based on merit-based selection and evaluation criteria, improved oversight of government personnel, and strengthening coordination among the institutions charged with fighting corruption. A subsequent section also refers in passing to fighting corruption by way of administrative simplification within the context of creating a more open and modern government. Finally, in addition to envisioning corruption in the context of the nation’s security problems and as rooted in institutional problems of insufficient oversight and punitive measures, Peña Nieto refers to corruption and opacity as obstacles to doing business in Mexico. He supports this view by referencing the findings of the Global Economic Forum (p. 79). Corruption/Anticorruption of López Obrador

As a long-time critic of the Mexican political system who built his 2018 campaign on the need to fight corruption (see subsequent section in this chapter), it should come as no surprise that President

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López Obrador’s PND casts corruption as far more important than his predecessor’s. In the much shorter sixty-four-page document, the term receives thirty-five mentions, for an average of 0.547 mentions per page. It highlights anticorruption in the first chapter as a “central objective of the sexenio [six-year presidential term]” (p. 14). It seems clear that prioritizing the fight against corruption stems from the president’s interpretation of corruption’s impact. Contextualizing corruption in a much broader way than Peña Nieto, the document blames corruption for inhibiting economic growth (it is deemed the “principal inhibitor,” p. 8) and development (p. 14), for the government’s massive debt (p. 48), and for the stagnation of the domestic market (p. 48). Corruption is blamed for undermining both the capacity of institutions to operate legally and the peoples’ rights and needs (p. 14), and it is credited for the nation’s poverty, inequality, institutional deterioration, generalized insecurity, violence, and loss of sovereignty (pp. 36, 48). By implication, such a broad, sweeping impact thus makes the fight against corruption central to providing greater well-being and addressing virtually all policy areas. Just as the PND views corruption’s impact broadly, it also tends to view corruption in a much broader context, representing the systematic appropriation of state resources to serve particularistic ends as well as more routine bureaucratic forms of corruption. This process of appropriation, López Obrador contends, occurs primarily through the privatization of state enterprises and government contracts, particularly no-bid contracts (p. 8). Portraying privatization as a form of corruption nicely captures the document’s broader understanding of the concept: “Corruption is the most extreme form of privatization, meaning the transfer of goods and public resources to private individuals” (p. 14). It is also within this broader understanding that the document explicitly links corruption to neoliberalism. “The most destructive and pernicious characteristic of the neoliberals was the corruption that was extended and converted into regular administrative practice” (p. 8). Indeed, throughout, the PND directly links corruption to neoliberalism (pp. 6, 8, 34, 36). Clearly, given the fact that privatizations and neoliberal policies are legal policy instruments, this systemic view of corruption encompasses legal forms of corruption and an anti-neoliberal posture, both of which align with leftist thinking. It is also within this context that López Obrador depicts corruption in broad structural terms involving a form of state capture by the

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collusion of a group of political and economic elite. The description clearly employs a populist trope by pitting a privileged elite, which he has historically referred to as “the mafia in power,” acting on behalf of their own interests as separate from the people, and kept in power by way of electoral fraud (a form of corruption): “Mexico was one of the countries where this model [neoliberal] was most strenuously, brutally and destructively applied and one in which it lasted longer. This is because the small political-entrepreneurial elite that imposed it took control of the institutions and perpetuated their control of them through successive electoral fraud” (pp. 7–8). Though the PND acknowledges that this pattern of corruption predates the neoliberal period, it nonetheless suggests that corruption increased quantitatively and qualitatively during that period: “When the collusion between public and economic power, the increasing corruption and the factious utilization of the institutions created an exclusive oligarchy, a small elite that ran the country according to its own wishes without attending to national needs and attentive only to the expansion of its businesses” (p. 34). While this characterization seems to refer to structural and systemic forms of corruption, subsequent paragraphs also lay out what he means by corruption in terms of individual conduct. The list seems to include standard references to the various forms of corruption located within the bureaucracy, such as: “The diversion of resources, the concession of benefits to third parties in exchange for gratifications, the extortion of persons and businesses, influence trafficking, favoritism, godfatherisms, the extension of obligations and red tape and taking advantage of the position or function to achieve whatever personal or group benefit” (p. 14). Later, the document also refers to tax avoidance as a form of corruption (p. 49). Interestingly, the PND even acknowledges a competing (ideological) discourse on corruption tied to neoliberalism: a view that considers state involvement in society as inherently corrupt, feeding the somewhat more orthodox anticorruption narrative of eliminating government intervention and dismantling the state. According to the report, the neoliberal perspective sees state involvement in the economy as “intrinsically corrupt” (p. 34). A good example of López Obrador’s vision of corruption’s broad impact, the importance of fighting it to promote the general welfare and corruption’s link to neoliberalism is offered in the discussion of the health-care sector under the heading “Health for All the Population”

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(p. 45). Not only does the document point to the system of public health as insufficient, inefficient, and corrupt, but it also links these shortcomings to the proliferation of private clinics and the concomitant looting of the public institutions during the neoliberal period. While highlighting the broader, systemic nature of corruption and its impact, the means to combat corruption according to the document include many of the rather standard orthodox measures centering on oversight and transparency, though many also seem to encompass a broader focus on the political side of the equation relating to conflict of interest and state-business alliances behind government contracts and concessions, fiscal policy, and tax avoidance. Reform proposals include: (1) measures associated with post-hoc sanctions such as making the crime of corruption a delito grave (felony), eliminating official impunity of high-level officials, reorienting the UIF (Financial Intelligence Unit under Treasury), and creating a specialized money laundering police unit; (2) preventive initiatives to broaden transparency and oversight, such as making obligatory and public the declarations/disclosures of property holdings by all public officials, international cooperation to eliminate fiscal paradises, real-time online monitoring of government acquisitions, a new law on conflicts of interest, and prohibiting direct, noncompeting contracts; and (3) institutional changes within the administration, including the centralization of comptroller functions and the strengthening of oversight and auditing mechanisms within the Secretary of Public Affairs (SFP) and the Federal Auditing Agency (ASF) (p. 14). In addition, López Obrador envisions a central role for ethics as a key mechanism to fighting corruption. Specifically, he calls for a “new social ethic,” defined as public power serving the public interest and the end of what he refers to as “the implicit tolerance of corruption” (p. 7). The importance of this new ethic of integrity and rule of law, as well as the priority of addressing corruption, is perhaps best captured in the president’s vision expressed in the PND’s closing sentence: In the last year of the current sexenio, in sum, the country will have realized in substance its fourth historical transformation, economically, socially and politically as well as in the ethics of sharing: it will have consummated the revolution of the consciousness and application of its principles—honor, respect for the law and truth, solidarity with others, preservation of peace—it will be the principle guarantee to prevent a return of the corruption, the simulation,

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the oppression, the discrimination and the predominance of wealth over dignity. (p. 63)

Also noteworthy is López Obrador’s contention that the savings enjoyed from eliminating corruption and waste will be enough to fund the expansive social programs also laid out in the PND (pp. 48–49). While this seems to suggest a monetary cost-benefit view of fighting corruption, the text’s overall emphasis on the impact of corruption in so many areas of society and ethics tends to suggest otherwise. Still, this point expresses a basic understanding that the monetary gains of corruption are not only significant but actually outweigh the costs of fighting corruption—something the document never addresses in detail. Comparing Left/Right Differences

The analysis highlights many differences in the views and understandings of corruption/anticorruption by the two presidents, many of which mirror the ideological tendencies parsed from the literature. For one, López Obrador clearly shows a much greater concern for corruption than Peña Nieto, with 0.547 mentions per page versus 0.109 mentions. This is also depicted in their description of corruption’s impact on society. As is typical of those on the left, López Obrador embraces a much broader understanding of the concept of corruption that includes legal forms of corruption, casts corruption as systemic and structural, and focuses much more attention on political corruption (decisionmaking arena) as opposed to administrative corruption (implementation arena). This vision does not exclude the more traditional or orthodox forms of corruption—including corruption as behavior and within the administrative side—but instead expands the scope of the concept and, consequently, its impact. Again typical of the left, López Obrador emphasizes a form of systemic corruption where the government privileges the interests of an economic elite through policy, much of it perfectly legal, painting a picture of a state captured by a collusive economic and political elite. And rather than individual wrongdoing, it refers more to a system characterized by institutions that fail to serve the public interest. Perhaps more than anything, by equating privatization, direct government contracts, and neoliberalism with corruption, López Obrador clearly depicts a broad leftist understanding of the concept of corruption, its manifestations, and its causes.

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By contrast, Peña Nieto tends to characterize corruption in much narrower terms linked largely to state institutions, bribery, and the capture of portions of the state primarily by organized crime rather than an economic elite that he sees as victimized by corruption. Accordingly, corruption’s impact centers more on undermining the criminal justice system, resulting in widespread crime, violence, and insecurity, and, more broadly, the state administration. Consistent with the orthodox/right discourse, his focus concentrates more on the administrative side of the equation and corrupt behavior. These differences also play out in terms of the two presidents’ respective reform proposals. Whereas Peña Nieto clearly recognizes the problem and the need to fight corruption, his prescriptions tend to incorporate the more orthodox ideas of addressing both preventive measures—by strengthening bureaucratic procedures, creating a professionalized civil service, and enhancing transparency and oversight— and punitive measures. He also stresses the need to bolster the role of the public and media in the anticorruption fight and, in typical alignment with the right, a decrease in the state’s intervention in society by way of administrative simplification. In many ways, López Obrador also promotes many of the reforms prescribed by the right and his predecessor focusing on administrative corruption; yet, more typical of the left, he seems to go beyond such tools to promote deeper reforms to the political (decisionmaking and representative) side of the equation: on elected and high-level officials, government’s relationship with the private sector, and legal forms of corruption.

Corruption/Anticorruption in Campaign Rhetoric: Populism, Left and Right Turning to the rhetoric of electoral campaigns and incorporating populism into the equation, we now explore the narratives employed by right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, leftist Mexican president López Obrador, leftist two-time US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and right-wing US president Donald Trump. Corruption has played a pivotal role in recent elections around the world (double meaning intended). This was strikingly clear in the 2016 US contest and the 2018 elections in Brazil and Mexico. Whether owing to a combination of the high-profile Lava Jato case (which rocked the Brazilian establishment, resulting in the imprison-

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ment of former long-time president Lula da Silva, among others, and the impeachment of his successor Dimla Rousseff), a spate of corruption scandals in Mexico under the prior government, growing economic inequality in the United States, the 2008 recession and related corruption, or the election of the first African American US president in 2008, Brazilian, Mexican, and US voters all carried a deep concern over real and/or perceived corruption to the polls. In Brazil, according to the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer by Transparency International (https://www.transparency.org/en/gcb), 81 percent of respondents believed that political parties were “corrupt”/“extremely corrupt,” 72 percent with respect to the legislature, 50 percent the judiciary, 70 percent for the police, and 46 percent public officials generally. In 2017 the Global Corruption Barometer reported that over 78 percent of respondents in Brazil said corruption had increased over the previous twelve months, 56 percent indicated that the government was doing a bad job of fighting corruption, and over 50 percent claimed that most or all people in the presidency and congress were “corrupt”/“extremely corrupt.” In Mexico, the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer shows that 93 percent of respondents considered corruption a “serious problem”/“a problem,” 91 percent that political parties were “corrupt”/“extremely corrupt,” and 62 percent that the government was run by a few big entities acting in their own best interests “entirely”/[to a]“large extent.” In the run-up to the 2018 election, 74 percent of respondents gauged the efforts of the prior president, Peña Nieto, to fight corruption as “poor”/“very poor” (Parametría 2018a) while for the first time corruption surpassed economic and security issues to become the most important issue in the election, cited by 29 percent of respondents (Abundis 2016). Post-election polls, in turn, showed that a third of López Obrador voters identified corruption as the most relevant issue (Parametría 2018b). In the United States, despite its global image of suffering relatively low levels of corruption based largely on expert-based perception metrics like TI’s (Transparency International) Corruption Perception Index (CPI), public-opinion polls tend to paint a different picture. In 2012, 70 percent of respondents claimed that members of the US Congress trade votes for cash or campaign contributions (Nichols and McChesney 2013, 12). In 2010, 82 percent believed corruption plays a “major role” in economic problems, while 85 percent stated that corporations have too much influence in government and 93 percent said

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that average citizens have too little influence (cited in Nichols and McChesney 2013, 84). According to the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, 69 percent of respondents in the United States said corruption was a “serious problem”/“a problem” and 64 percent claimed that the government was run by few big entities acting in their own best interests “entirely”/“to a large extent:” a higher percentage than in Mexico! Asserting that “government corruption is perhaps the central issue in the 2016 campaign because it’s the biggest problem facing our country,” Curry (2015) cites a 2006 CBS poll showing “77% of voters said lobbyists bribing members is ‘just the way things work in Congress’”; a Fox News poll showing 91 percent of respondents concerned about corruption in Washington, up from 81 percent the year before; and a 2006 Gallup poll indicating that 96 percent of voters said corruption would be an important factor in their vote for Congress. In a mutual interactive relationship, such popular sentiments regarding corruption helped ignite the popularity of candidates cast as outsiders and antiestablishment; in turn, the candidates reified the public’s concerns. Though a long-time backbencher in the Brazilian congress, Jair Bolsonaro was considered an extremist and an outsider from a minor political party. Also enjoying extensive government experience as the former mayor of Mexico City and two-time party leader (of two different parties), the three-time presidential candidate López Obrador and his recently formed MORENA party were seen as a challenge to the Mexican political establishment and the status quo. Similarly, nominally not an outsider, long-time US senator Bernie Sanders of the state of Vermont is a self-declared democratic socialist (in a country with a historical paranoia and rejection of anything considered “socialist” and an imaginative exaggeration about what socialism is) and officially not a member of either of the two dominant parties. Finally, a businessman and TV celebrity, Donald Trump is perhaps the quintessential outsider. He had never held elected public office nor had had any experience working in government or a political party, though he had become outspoken on many political issues, particularly in his personal attacks against former president Barack Obama (2008–2016). Still, despite their different backgrounds and career trajectories, all four candidates stressed the issue of corruption during their campaigns; all incorporated corruption into their diagnostics about their country’s failings; and all promised to prioritize the fight against corruption if elected. Articulating a “people” versus [a corrupt] “elite” rhetorical trope, all embraced a populist rhetoric. Even so, their views on cor-

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ruption, its scope, the nature of the problem, and how to fight it differed in fundamental ways, often aligning with the left and the right. Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil)

Though relatively unknown nationally, Jair Bolsonaro, the seven-term congressman from the state of Rio de Janeiro, was perceived as a serious anticorruption figure. As The Economist stated, “His fulminations against ‘os corruptos’ helped make him famous” (“Jair Bolsonaro Has Given Up on His Anti-graft Crusade” 2019). Calling himself “a threat to the stubbornly corrupt” (Cattan and Biller 2017), Bolsonaro highlighted corruption as a system of government throughout his campaign, targeting in particular the government of the leftist PT (Workers Party). Having ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2016, the PT had been racked by a series of corruption scandals including the Mensalao scandal in the early years and culminating in the massive Lava Jato case in the latter year that implicated many officials from the government, state enterprises, and the private sector in Brazil and throughout Latin America (see Gonzalez-Ocantos and Hidalgo 2019).1 Given the situation facing the country, Bolsonaro’s message and persona resonated with the public—which, coupled with the jailing of popular former president Lula, resulted in his surprise victory. During his inauguration speech on January 1, 2019, he promised to “free the country from the yoke of corruption.” But what does Bolsonaro mean by corruption/anticorruption? First, the candidate’s narrative portrays corruption as a major issue challenging Brazil that, along with crime, has undermined the country.2 Under the heading “Urgent Challenges,” for example, his campaign platform posits the need to address “crime, corruption and the manipulation of the state in order to stop the damage and begin the process of restoring the country, the economy and democracy” (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 12). Later, under the subheading “Suffering Corruption” (p. 35), the document calls transparency and combating corruption “nonnegotiable objectives.” Second, Bolsonaro clearly couches corruption within a populist discourse, targeting an “elite” that, via corruption, has undermined the nation: “the tone is defiantly anti-establishment, but inclusive and shrouded in patriotism.” He envisions the corrupt establishment as those who, according to Rodrigo Constantino, a Veja columnist, “have control over media, politics and culture” (cited in “Jair Bolsonaro Has

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Given Up on His Anti-graft Crusade” 2019). At one level, Bolsonaro associates corruption with the left, broadly conceived. According to Pagliarini (2019), Bolsonaro characterizes the PT’s thirteen years in power as an “insidious plot to reshape and plunder the nation.” The campaign platform actually goes a bit further: “After 30 years of the left having corrupted democracy and stagnating the economy, we will make an alliance of order and progress: a liberal democratic government” (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 10). This view of the corrupt left includes its corrupt influence over the nation’s culture, prompting promises to go after the left in the schools (Pagliarini 2019) and “ban from the classroom political opinions, debates, and any issues that could be construed as leftist” (Fox 2018). Despite reserving perhaps his harshest attacks on the left, Bolsonaro also ties corruption to the political elite more generally, including the post 2016 nonleftist government and the vast state bureaucracy. As Brian Winter (2018) notes, “He saved his toughest talk for recent scandals, calling right-wing President Temer, who took office in 2016 following the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, who also faced charges of corruption, ‘one of the fathers of corruption,’ and criticizing his peers in Congress for ‘turning a blind eye . . . in the name of governability.’” Part of this indictment of the ruling elite includes the state bureaucracy and state enterprises. Under the heading “Government That Has Confidence of the People,” the campaign platform unequivocally stipulates that “bureaucratic complexity feeds corruption” (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 20). In a similar manner, under a subheading related to the petroleum industry, the platform claims that the “bureaucratic requirement for local content” not only reduces productivity and efficiency but “generates corruption” (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 73). Many of these ideas attacking state regulations and the bureaucracy align neatly with the right. Though rather sparse, the campaign platform also provides some insights into Bolsonaro’s thinking on anticorruption. At one level, the discourse posits a top-down, hierarchical view that sees corruption requiring support and protection from the top. “Brazil will experience a rapid cultural transformation where impunity, corruption, crime, the ‘advantage,’ [and] intelligence will no longer be accepted as part of our national identity, BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT FIND PROTECTION IN THE GOVERNMENT” (emphasis in the original) (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 15). Accordingly, ending support and cover from the top will debilitate corruption. Along these lines, Bolsonaro promised to eliminate the “foro privelegiado” enjoyed by members of congress,

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protecting them from prosecution while in office (Kolling 2019), and reduce the level of state bureaucracy and state intervention. In conjunction with his attack on the bureaucracy as inherently corrupt, the platform also promises: No more stamps, permits and bureaucracies. Bureaucratic complexity nurtures corruption. We will create a government that will have confidence in the citizen, simplifying and breaking the logic that the left has imposed on us of distrusting the proper people and workers. We will not continue to treat the exception as the rule, which hurts the majority of those who are law abiding. (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 20)

In addition, according to Cattan and Biller (2017), Bolsonaro supports privatization of nonstrategic assets, including Petróleo Brasileiro SA, the state-run oil giant that had been a source of national pride until prosecutors showed it to be the center of a vast network of patronage and graft (see also Chueri 2018). The pillar of Bolsonaro’s anticorruption commitment, according to the platform, will be to rescue the “Ten Measures Against Corruption” initially put forward by the public prosecutor’s office in 2015 (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 35). The platform itself, however, does not offer many details or lay out these measures for the voter. Compiled by members of the operative group of Federal Public Ministry working on Lava Jato, the high-profile proposal gained over two million signatures from the citizenry in 2015 before being submitted to congress, so it was presumably well known at the time of the election. Offering insights into Bolsonaro’s anticorruption strategy, most of the ten measures center on strengthening punitive measures by reforming the justice system to facilitate the prosecution of corrupt officials and white-collar criminals and enhance penalties. Specific plans include reforms to the penal code to allow for preventive, pretrial imprisonment for white-collar crime; measures to more effectively recover loss funds from corruption; changes to the evidentiary exclusionary rules to prevent its misuse facilitating impunity; an extension of the statute of limitations on corruption cases; a simplification and streamlining of the judicial processes and a speeding up of the appeals process; a strengthening of sentences for corruption, especially for cases involving more than US $25 million; a change to criminalize illicit enrichment; and a measure to make political parties responsible and punishable for acts of corruption committed by their leaders for institutional reasons. The only measure reaching slightly

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beyond the justice system called for the creation of programs to train professionals to promote a culture of intolerance against corruption.3 While two of the measures were subsequently accepted by congress following rigorous and contentious debate (increasing penalties and the measure on parties), the others were not. As a result, Bolsonaro’s campaign promised to rescue this popular, high-profile initiative. As an anticorruption strategy, the measures tend to target impunity and characterize corruption as largely a law enforcement matter. López Obrador (Mexico)

The first part of this chapter outlined some of the corruption/ anticorruption thinking of the current Mexican president. Much of the narrative incorporated into the national development plan (Government of Mexico 2019a) echoes the campaign rhetoric as laid out in the candidate’s 2017 book, 2018 La salida: Decadencia y renacimiento. First, López Obrador clearly characterizes corruption as “Mexico’s principle problem” due largely to its pernicious effects on the country (López Obrador 2017, 9). In various sections of the campaign book, the presidential candidate links corruption to inequality, violence, disintegration, moral decadence, and poor economic performance (López Obrador 2017, 123). In a subsequent book published in 2019 following the election, entitled Hacía una economía moral, he further links corruption to the theft of gasoline and petroleum, tax evasion, arms trafficking, and other crimes that, he adds, “could not occur without the complicity between those committing the infractions and public officials” (López Obrador 2019, ch. 3, par. 18). At one point, he blames corruption for the failures of the Mexican Revolution.4 The campaign writings make clear López Obrador’s understanding of corruption as a structural phenomenon. Viewed broadly, he seems to characterize corruption as a form of state capture by a minority of political and economic elites working together to rob the people’s resources (López Obrador 2017, 14). “Political power and economic power mutually fed and nurtured one another” (López Obrador 2019, ch. 1, par. 12), he claims, creating “juicy private businesses anchored in public power” (López Obrador 2019, ch. 1, par. 5). This system, which he also labels as crony capitalism (López Obrador 2017, 28), occurred by way of government concessions, contracts, the privatization of state-owned enterprises, outsourcing, the nonpayment and condonation of taxes, and other transfers channeled to businesses tied to small groups centered around former presidents and high-level

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officials (López Obrador 2017, 14, 16). As in the national development plan, he unequivocally equates privatization not only with corruption but also robbery (“privatizer, sinónimo de robar”) (López Obrador 2017, 19) and further claims that such transfers of state resources to a minority had actually become the principle function of political power (p. 14). Accordingly, this made the state “a mere committee at the service of a minority” (López Obrador 2019, ch. 1, par. 12):5 a view somewhat reminiscent of the Marxist view of state capture or the epiphenomenon of the state. Much of this corruption, he further acknowledges, was legal.6 As he contends (López Obrador 2019, ch. 1, par. 12), “The juridical framework was adjusted to legalize the pillaging and blanketed by a euphemism: ‘the disincorporation of non-strategic and non-priority state entities for national development.’” The government’s Fobaproa program (part of the bank bailout following the 1995 financial crisis that converted bank debt into public debt), he argues—though legal— nonetheless covered up the diversion of funds and the fraud committed by the banks and financial institutions, while various fiscal measures, credits, and deductions approved by the government served to benefit the few (López Obrador 2019, ch. 1; ch. 2, par. 5). The government, moreover, used its tools of propaganda—including the corruption of the media through legal government expenditures for social communication—to convince the public that these policies and the dominance of the economic interests of a small group were justified (2019, ch. 1, par. 14). The effects, he contends, are clear: “The decision to position the State solely to pursue the prosperity of the few, with the euphemisms of ‘encouraging the market’ deepened inequality and produced the current social decomposition” (2019, ch. 1, par. 11). Promising to rescue the state from its captivity, but in a peaceful, legal, and democratic manner, López Obrador’s approach to anticorruption emphasizes a top-down strategy and various structural measures. Similar to Bolsonaro, López Obrador interprets corruption in hierarchical terms as dependent on or as a result of corruption at the highest levels (López Obrador 2017, 123). “We are imposing order at the summit of power because corruption, I reiterate, is promoted and practiced, fundamentally, from the highest levels to the lower levels. No more of ‘the president was unaware’ or that ‘they fooled him’” (López Obrador 2019, ch. 3, par. 16). He thus stresses eliminating corruption at the top as the key to abating corruption throughout the system. Emphasizing the virtue of honesty and the need to “make honesty a habit” (López Obrador 2017, 29), he envisions leading by example as

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a powerful anticorruption tool: “To preach by example will be the greatest lesson” (López Obrador, 2017, 123). He also calls for a number of reforms to broaden the legal scope of corruption (make legal corruption illegal), block the collusion of political and economic interests, strengthen punitive measures, and broaden the public’s participation in the fight. These include the elimination of the immunity enjoyed by top officials (López Obrador 2017, 123); a new law restricting conflict of interest and a change of rules to prevent former high-level officials (director or above) from serving for ten years on companies that compete for public contracts (López Obrador 2017, 129); reforming the penal code to make the crimes of corruption, money laundering, conflict of interests, and influence peddling felonies (López Obrador 2017, 130); the consolidation of governmental purchases (López Obrador 2017, 148); a strengthening of honesty in government and measures to increase whistleblower protections; creation of a universal system of disclosure of property holdings and conflicts of interests to include all public officials, judges, party officials, union officials, members of civil associations, and any others who use or administer public funds that are monitored (López Obrador 2017, 35); enhancing citizen involvement in autonomous anticorruption entities; and promoting austerity measures designed to cut excessive government salaries, the clientelistic growth of government offices, and the privileges and public funds going to intermediaries.7 Interestingly, yet somewhat consistent with the strategy of strengthening citizen involvement to fight corruption, the future president was, during the campaign, critical of the newly hatched National Anticorruption System (SNA for initials in Spanish). Noting how neither the SFP nor the attorney general have any independence from the president—and that even the ASF and congress face limitations in their ability to carry out investigations—the SNA leaves the power of the president intact and fails to regulate the enormous power of national or transnational businesses or the large financial interests of the television duopoly (López Obrador 2017, 34). Bernie Sanders (the United States)

Bernie Sanders of the state of Vermont served in the US House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007 and in the Senate since 2007. Though he caucuses with the Democrats, he is officially an independent and labels himself a democratic socialist. He ran in the Demo-

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cratic primaries of 2016 and 2020 but failed to garner the nomination. Nonetheless, despite the historic (almost pathological) antisocialist sentiment among the US population, the Sanders campaign enjoyed widespread support within the party, particularly among younger generations, and registered some state primary and caucus victories. His message about the nation’s corrupt system resonated within the public’s growing realization of and concern about corruption. Both Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns employed a left-populist rhetoric. The candidate articulates a division between elites and others and depicts the system as privileging the corrupt elite against the interests of the people: “We have seen what happens when corporations and billionaires control our system of government to protect their own profit and greed. The era of Wall Street billionaires controlling our government and elections must come to an end, and we must take back our democracy for the American people” (“Get Big Money Out of Politics” n.d.). The Sanders campaign also emphasized political economy issues, lashed out against legal and institutional forms of corruption, stressed political rather than administrative forms of corruption, entertained a structural vision of corruption, broached a more participatory republican vision of democracy, and called for fundamental economic and political institutional changes. Themes that clearly align with the left. What does Bernie Sanders seem to understand about corruption/ anticorruption? Like López Obrador, Sanders sees corruption through a leftist political economy perspective and offers a populist narrative that envisions corruption as a systemic phenomenon controlled by a political and economic elite that “works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans.” This, he contends, is facilitated legally by way of elections and a campaign finance system based on private donations: “We now have a political situation where billionaires are . . . able to buy elections and candidates” (cited in Zaru 2015). It is also facilitated by way of corporate lobbying and the revolving door that “allows Congressional staff to move between lobbying firms and Capitol Hill.” “Congress cannot represent their constituents,” he argues, “while special interest groups have the ability to influence decisions with corner offices and lucrative job offers” (Sanders 2020 campaign website, https://berniesanders.com). This corrupt system manifests in widening income and wealth inequality reaching “obscene levels” “while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages” (“Bernie Sanders Confirms Presidential Run” 2015).

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Seeing corruption primarily in terms of a political system privileging the wealthy, anticorruption for Sanders centers largely on economic reforms and measures designed to alter the public (and private) institutions of representations that operate to serve the interests of the few. Economic measures include ending offshore banking and tax havens; breaking up “too big to fail” financial institutions along the lines of legislation he introduced in May 2015: “If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist” (Sanders 2015; Resnikoff 2015); restoring the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment banking from retail banking; capping interest rates and ATM fees; breaking up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies; and restricting rapid-fire financial speculation with a financial transactions tax. Sanders also promotes fundamental institutional changes within the economy such as public audits of the Federal Reserve (a quasi-public institution) and changes designed to make it a more democratic institution responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. He similarly calls for changes to ensure worker representation on corporate boards (Dickinson 2015; see also “Bernie Sanders on Political and Electoral Reform” n.d.). Politically, Sanders’s anticorruption efforts encompass fundamental institutional changes primarily within the area of representation. Seeing the campaign finance system as favoring particular interests and facilitating the structural alliance of the political and economic elite, Sanders supports the ending of super PACs and corporate funding of party conventions and presidential inaugurations, the public funding of all elections, initiatives found in the “Disclose Act” making campaign finances more transparent, and banning US corporations controlled by foreign interests from making any political expenditures (“Bernie Sanders on Government Reform” 2016). Calling the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United (2010) that overturned restrictions on independent political spending by corporations and unions as “one of the Supreme Court’s worst decisions ever,” he also supports a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling. In addition, he calls on the elimination of the politicized and largely dysfunctional Federal Election Commission (FEC)—the agency charged with enforcing electoral and campaign finance laws—to be replaced by a Federal Election Administration (FEA) run by experts and armed with more extensive law enforcement powers.8 He would also institute a lifetime lobbying ban for former members of Congress and senior staffers (see “Get Corporate Money Out of Politics” n.d.; “Bernie Sanders 2016 Presidential Campaign”).

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Donald Trump (the United States) A highly controversial figure with extensive name recognition due to his celebrity status but no political experience, Donald Trump clearly capitalized on the widespread perceptions and concern about corruption among the US electorate—probably without knowing it.9 Like the others reviewed here, the Trump campaign employed a populist narrative depicting a corrupt elite thwarting the wishes and interests of the people. “Politicians are going to destroy this country,” he stated. “They are weak and ineffective. They are controlled by the lobbyists of the special interests. Every one of these lobbyists that give money expects something for it. . . . They could take a politician and have him jump off this ledge” (quoted in Curry 2015). “We’re battling against the corrupt establishment of the past,” Trump said, warning: “They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, [and] indoctrinate our students with left-wing ideology” (cited in Burns 2019). Echoing the sentiments of the public, Trump the presidential candidate noted how as a wealthy individual he had firsthand knowledge of how the corrupt system operated; how campaign contributions effectively buy political influence and how he used tax loopholes to his personal advantage. As one account put it, “His serial abuse of America’s tax laws and campaign-finance system only proved that he was a savvy businessman, and that his opponents were all corrupt or incompetent ‘career politicians.’ After all, his job had been to win the rat race; their job was to write its rules” (Levitz 2019). By sharing such insider information and by publicly refusing to accept corporate and PAC donations,10 Trump campaigned as being free from such corrupting influences, thus enabling him to cast himself as a bulwark against corruption. Running on an anticorruption platform, he promised voters to “make our government honest once again” (“How Might Trump ‘Drain the Swamp’?” 2016) or, as he would later put it, “drain the swamp”—an expression first used during a campaign rally on October 17, 2016, less than a month before the election (Arnsdorf et al. 2016). The future president’s concept of corruption seemed to encompass entrenched politicians beholden to the corporate interests financing their campaigns (a standard understanding of corruption in the United States), what he saw as a bloated state bureaucracy, and a left/liberal media and elite controlling cultural industries and higher education. During his January 2017 inaugural address, Trump laid out his vision of corruption:

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For too long a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished—but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered—but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. That all changes—starting right here, and right now. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another—but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the American People. (“Inaugural Address” 2017).

In an earlier, more sweeping condemnation of the system, Trump extended the notion of corruption to incorporate voter fraud, shortcomings in the government’s fight against ISIS, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, Obamacare, liberal Supreme Court justices, and the Clinton email investigation (Arnsdorf et al. 2016; Walsh 2016). As one analyst notes, it was not an attack on the power of corporations— which seemingly were, like himself in the past, only rationally taking advantage of the situation—but instead on a ‘‘failed liberal establishment’’ that Trump described as attacking the country’s sovereignty and cultural heritage (Burns 2019). Much of this corrupt “liberal establishment” included what is often referred to as the “mainstream” and institutionalized corporate media in the United States. Attacking the media’s coverage of him and the campaign during rallies, Trump seemingly popularized the notion of “fake news.” He would also coin the term “deep state” to refer to the embedded interests within the state, particularly the intelligence community and the Department of Justice, which not only resisted changes to the corrupt system that served their interests but, according to Trump, also weaponized institutional oversight (a form of corruption) to try to push the president out of office. Trump’s anticorruption ideas included some of the more common ones related to campaign finance reform and lobbying. Some, in fact, parallel those of Sanders. Elaborated as part of a five-point ethics plan during an October 18, 2016, rally, Trump promised to: (1) ban executive officials from lobbying for five years; (2) ask Congress to do the same for its members and staff; (3) expand the legal definition of lobbying to close the many loopholes and prevent lobbyists from being called advisers or consultants because they spend less than 20 percent of time lobbying; (4) ban senior administration officials from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments; and (5) stop foreign lobbyists from raising money for US elections (though this did not address 501(c) and Super PAC secret funds) (Arnsdorf et al. 2016; “How Might Trump ‘Drain the Swamp’?” 2016).

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Just a few days later, on October 22, the campaign issued a “Contract with the American Voter.” Described as Trump’s “100-day action plan,” the document “begins with restoring honesty and accountability.” It then lays out a series of eighteen measures sorted under three themes to be pursued during the “first day” in office and, subsequently, a series of ten proposed legislative acts to promote within the first 100 days. Of the three themes for day one, the first is entitled “To clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC.” It includes six commitments: (1) propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress; (2) impose a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce the federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health); (3) forge a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated; (4) impose a five-year ban on White House and congressional officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave government service; (5) create a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government; and (6) ban foreign lobbyists from raising money for American elections. The candidate also pledged under legislative initiatives to push for the “Clean Up Corruption in Washington Act.” This intriguing measure is described simply as “Enacts new ethics reforms to drain the swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics” (“Contract with the American Voter” 2016; Evans 2018). As indicated by the anticorruption formulas, part of Trump’s more novel understanding of corruption centers on deregulation, eliminating the state’s role in the economy and society, and reducing the number of bureaucrats. In this way, it is somewhat reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s (1980–1988) use of the expression “drain the swamp” that targeted waste, fraud, and duplication of government services: an expression Trump would repopularize during the campaign.11 Such a view also clearly parallels the right’s preference for limited government, an underlying distrust of the state and state officials, and faith in market forces. Yet, Trump’s emphasis on the powerful influence of special interests by way of lobbying and the revolving door also highlights a broader, often left-oriented definition of corruption focusing on issues of representation and political rather than administrative forms of corruption. Such views not only draw on the populist formula but they also seem to combine the left’s concern about the influence of the economic elite and the right’s concern about a bloated state bureaucracy and state intervention in the economy.

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In considering the rhetoric and statements of the four candidates, it is clear that all four candidates employed key aspects of populism during their campaign. All articulated some version of an “us/the people” versus a “them/elite” rhetorical framework, depicting the former as the victims of a corrupt elite. Still, differences are apparent as to the meaning—implied and explicit—of the people and the elite. For Bolsonaro and Trump on the right, the expression “the people” seems to carry strong nationalistic and even ethnic overtones, while for López Obrador and Sanders on the left, it seems to be more inclusive, embracing immigrants, ethnic minorities, workers, and the poor. Similarly, the candidates seem to entertain different understandings of who constitutes the corrupt “elite.” For Bolsonaro and Trump, the elite seems to refer primarily to the political establishment that controls the state as well as those who control the media, universities, and cultural industries. López Obrador and Sanders, by contrast, tend to assail an elite composed primarily of economic and corporate interests working in collusion with or controlling through legal or illegal forms of corruption the political establishment. Second, despite sharing populist rhetoric, a number of the ideas on corruption/anticorruption arguably align ideologically with the left and right. The leftist candidates López Obrador and Sanders both seem to offer broader interpretations of corruption that include structural, institutional, and legal forms of corruption. Both focus more attention on political corruption than administrative corruption and in particular on the state’s relationship to businesses, and both clearly associate corruption with the operation of the capitalist system. Perhaps more outspoken, López Obrador directly ties neoliberalism— the right’s vision of free-market capitalism—to corruption. In a similar manner, Sanders’s view of corruption/anticorruption supports his calls for fundamental change in the operation of the US capitalist system. Such measures clearly align with the left. The right-wing candidates Bolsonaro and Trump express corruption/anticorruption views that align ideologically with the right. Both see corruption, in part at least, as an entrenched political elite serving their own interests, but which also extends to media, educational, and cultural institutions. Moreover, both tend to see corruption in terms of excessive state intervention in the economy, calling for extensive deregulation, a dismantling of the state, privatization of state-owned firms, and measures to help unleash market forces: all positions supported by the right. Bolsonaro not only pinpoints bureaucratic complexity as a cause of corruption but also promises to pursue privati-

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zation as an anticorruption measure—something, in stark contrast, López Obrador defines as synonymous with corruption. Similarly, Trump promised to put in place a measure requiring the elimination of two regulations when approving a new one. There are also some important similarities that actually cross ideological lines. Trump, for instance, pointed to forms of corruption normally stressed by the left, such as legal corruption and the influence of corporations over politics. Like Sanders, Trump recognized the institutions of campaign finance and lobbying as facilitating control by corporate interests. Unlike Sanders, however, Trump did not particularly blame the economic elite for the situation, though he nonetheless called for somewhat similar measures to overhaul the campaign finance and lobbying systems as his rival. Similarly, Bolsonaro, López Obrador, and Trump all see the existence and persistence of corruption stemming from the corruption and protection offered from the highest levels of government. Moreover, Bolsonaro and López Obrador both attack impunity, stressing much-needed reforms designed to enhance the efficiency and efficacy of the state’s ability to investigate and prosecute corruption. In slight contrast to Bolsonaro’s views on the manipulation of appeal procedures and exclusionary rules that create de facto impunity, López Obrador sees much of the corruption in Mexico as legal, thus requiring new laws to expand the juridical net of anticorruption. Interestingly, at least three of the candidates refer to corruption in a cultural context. Both López Obrador and Trump, for instance, point to honesty in government as a simple yet critical ingredient to combat corruption. Trump and Bolsonaro assail the corrupt control exercised by the left over culture. Incorporated within a “culture war” narrative, both attack the leftist/liberal-establishment’s control of the media, universities, and cultural institutions. Whereas Trump attacked the “fake news” from mainstream media, Bolsonaro promised to fight corruption by dismantling the left’s control of such institutions (Garcia 2020).

Conclusion Exploring the rhetoric contained in the national development plans of Peña Nieto and López Obrador in Mexico and in the presidential campaigns of Bolsonaro in Brazil, López Obrador in Mexico, and Sanders and Trump in the United States, the current chapter details and illustrates left/right and populist narratives on corruption and

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anticorruption. First, analysis shows a somewhat broader understanding of corruption by the left that encompasses structural, institutional, and legal forms of corruption with an emphasis on the corrupt control exerted over policy by an entrenched and privileged economic elite. At the same time, it points to a concern on the right of corruption centered mainly within the bureaucracy and among entrenched state officials who routinely use their controls to pursue their own interests, often to the detriment of business interests and those of the people. In many ways, the findings here echo those from the prior chapter that differentiates between a left/right understanding of corruption and fighting corruption. In addition to the prior treatment, however, the evidence also identifies and illustrates a populist discourse on corruption/anticorruption. Indeed, all four of the campaign discourses examined here depicted a fundamental narrative pitting a corrupt elite against “the people.” Accordingly, corruption thwarts or undermines the realization of a government serving the “true” interests of the people by, instead, serving personal, corporate, or class interests. Much of this, as characterized by all four candidates, occurs through legal forms of corruption and the capturing of the state by particularistic interests who use the state in a sort of neo-patrimonial fashion to serve their own interests. Such a view echoes strongly with public opinion. And yet despite these similarities, the populist discourse also incorporates much of the left/right discourse on corruption/anticorruption. Indeed, analysis shows that while López Obrador and Sanders on the left depict the corruption thwarting popular will as serving corporate and business interests, Bolsonaro and Trump utilize a narrative that tends to assign more blame to entrenched politicians and bureaucrats. For these two, corruption extends to what both depict as leftist control over media, educational institutions, and the culture. In promising much-needed reforms, the populist discourse broadly promotes the goal of returning control of the government to the people. Owing to the nature of this narrative, such change centers in large measure on the political side of the equation encompassing such proposals as campaign finance reform, term limits, greater attention to conflicts of interest, and declarations of assets. Other proposed anticorruption measures, however, reflect a left/right division, with the left emphasizing reforms designed to curtail the influence of corporate interests over the government that generate policies that lead to transferring public resources to private interests, while the right focuses more on weakening the state, dismantling state con-

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trols, eliminating regulations, and privatizing state-owned firms to promote private-sector interests. In addition, the right also target their anticorruption plans to thwart the left’s control over the media and educational and cultural institutions. Beyond these distinctions, the analysis also points to some commonalities and crossovers that offer a modicum of support to the null hypothesis. Beyond the similarities expressed through the adoption of a populist discourse, many share a narrative depicting corruption as stemming from the top and as requiring an elimination of waste, a streamlining of the bureaucracy, and a strengthening of both preventive and punitive measures. Many of the seemingly more technical, bureaucratic aspects of anticorruption, for example, can be found in both Peña Nieto and López Obrador’s official documents. As is explored more fully in Chapter 6, the populist rhetoric illustrated here coupled with the candidates’ emphasis on corruption seems to contribute to the politicization and polarization of corruption/ anticorruption. In all four cases, the views expressed on corruption/ anticorruption not only politically target their “corrupt” opponents but also resonate with large segments of society. Once elected, accusations by the three victorious candidates targeting a corrupt elite would ignite counteraccusations by opponents of how these governments thwart or cripple oversight mechanisms, concentrating and consolidating powers to ostensibly fight corruption: accusations and counteraccusations that define and fuel the politicization and polarization of corruption and anticorruption. * * *

With both the scholarly and political discourses exhibiting left/right differences, attention now turns to the question of whether (and how well) such ideologically based views translate into public policy. To what extent do the rhetorical promises of fighting corruption determine the actual anticorruption measures promoted by governments?

Notes

1. Owing to the lack of institutionalized parties and the nation’s federalist system in Brazil, distributing favors had become the key to gaining support to get anything through congress (Fogel 2019; Praca and Taylor 2014; Rose-Ackerman and Mattos Pimenta 2020). Corruption, of course, predated the PT government. 2. Though Bolsonaro links corruption to the nation’s security issues, including the rise of street crime and weak rule of law—also major campaign issues—the entire

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section devoted to “Security and Combatting Corruption,” which highlights crime statistics, fails to mention corruption. 3. See https://www.lampadia.com/analisis/gobernanza/reforma-anti-corrupcion and http://fcpamericas.com/spanish/las-10-medidas-contra-la-corrupcion-de-brasil -la-camara-de-diputados-aprueba-los-cambios-la-propuesta-presentada-por-el-grupo -operativo-de-lava-jato/#. 4. Citing historian Daniel Cosío Villegas, López Obrador (2019, ch. 1, par. 7), argues: “It has been the dishonesty of the revolutionary governments, more than anything else, that caused that rupture of the life of the Mexican Revolution.” 5. López Obrador goes to great lengths to provide examples of crony capitalism, discussing Peña Nieto’s links to contractors and cost overruns. He highlights in particular the relationship between Juan Armando Hinojosa Cantú and the Spanish company OHL with Emilio Lozoya, former campaign manager and director of Pemex, who had worked on the board of OHL. He describes the companies that benefited from permits to import gasoline and their political ties, documenting the practice of allowing companies to not pay taxes dating back to the administration of Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and the revolving door of officials from business to government under the government of Felipe Calderon (2006–2012) (López Obrador 2017, 75–76, 82). 6. Offering examples of legal corruption, López Obrador (2019, ch. 3, par. 32) provides an extensive list of actions and reforms approved by congress that he classifies as corrupt. 7. Much of the candidate’s anticorruption strategy is laid out in his Proyecto de la Nación 2018–2024 (n.d.) and “50 Points of Austerity and Anticorruption” (“AMLO da 50 puntos de austeridad y anticorrupción” 2018). The 461-page Proyecto emerged from a group assembled by the presidential candidate and leader of MORENA. It offers an extensive review of the nation’s problems and the party’s and the candidate’s approach to addressing those problems. “50 Points” is a much smaller, campaign-style document by the candidate addressing in direct fashion measures to fight corruption and promote austerity. 8. The new FEA proposed by Sanders would have three members: a chair, serving a ten-year term, and two administrators each serving six-year terms. This would prevent any president from picking all three members. All members would be required to have a background in some form of law or ethics enforcement, which could also include former judges. Hearings for violations of campaign finance laws would be conducted before an administrative law judge, and the FEA would have the power to impose civil and criminal penalties for violations (Sanders campaign website). 9. It was relatively late in the campaign when Trump began using the phrase “drain the swamp.” The early part of the campaign centered more on immigration and trade issues than on corruption. 10. Trump: “I am self-funding my campaign and therefore I will not be controlled by the donors, special interests and lobbyists who have corrupted our politics and politicians for far too long. I have disavowed all super PACs, requested the return of all donations made by said PACs, and I am calling on all presidential candidates to do the same” (cited in Johnson 2015). 11. “In 1980, Reagan pointed to the need to ‘drain the swamp’ of bureaucracy in Washington.” He subsequently created the Grace Commission, which identified $424 billion of wasteful government spending that could be cut (Harrington 2016).

4 Anticorruption Policies Left and Right

SHOWING HOW DIFFERENT MEANINGS AND INTERPREtations of corruption/anticorruption within the scholarly literature and political rhetoric tend to align with ideas associated with the left and right, Chapters 2 and 3 lend some support to the study’s central hypothesis. But can such differences be discerned within the policy arena? Do conceptual, theoretical, and political ideas translate into and affect the anticorruption policies of left and right governments? To address these questions, this chapter explores the anticorruption initiatives developed and pursued by a set of left- and right-wing presidential administrations in the region during the twenty-first century. The basic task is to identify any differences that may be rooted in or tied to ideology: whether there is what could be called a “left” or “right” anticorruption strategy or, alternatively, whether despite the academic literature and the political rhetoric, anticorruption policies are basically the same across the political spectrum, rooted in the more orthodox approach promoted by the international anticorruption community (Gephart 2012, 2017). Interest here centers rather narrowly on presidential approaches and policies. As such, I do not analyze in depth the anticorruption efforts of actors outside the executive. While clearly a thorough analysis of anticorruption in any country would have to take into account all actors and political forces, such a task reaches beyond the scope and purpose of the current project. Still, even this narrower 75

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approach presents challenges. Among them is what constitutes anticorruption policy. Particularly from an unorthodox and leftist perspective, as noted in Chapter 2, corruption/anticorruption often refers to broad issues involving political processes, popular participation, and institutional reforms that may not traditionally be thought of as fighting corruption. The key operational device to address this challenge is whether the president or the administration considers the policy as part of its overall effort to fight corruption. A second yet related challenge is to recognize that not all anticorruption reforms that occur during the course of an administration are the result of presidential initiative. As noted, interest here centers rather narrowly on the presidential administration. Yet scandals, as seen in many of the cases explored here, often strip presidents of full control over the anticorruption agenda in the country, undermining their legitimacy as an anticorruption reformer while simultaneously heightening the role of social movements and civil society organizations in the process. It is thus important to recognize and acknowledge when forces beyond the administration shape the agenda and the initiatives essentially forcing presidents, facing plummeting approval ratings and legitimacy, to reluctantly accede to the changes. Methodologically, this chapter draws on a review of presidential and government plans and initiatives, including those created in conjunction with civil society, such as the Open Government Partnership national action plans; self-reporting documents to international agencies; reports and assessments of anticorruption policies by third parties, such as those conducted by the Organization of American States (OAS) Follow-Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (MESICIC), Transparency International (TI) and local TI chapters; news reports; and secondary sources. It also benefits from a series of informal interviews with academic colleagues who specialize in corruption within particular countries.1 Selected cases involve three countries—Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico—where both the right and the left have alternated in power in recent years. This facilitates in-country comparison and helps highlight the question of continuity versus change in anticorruption approaches. To offer further contrast, I also incorporate the cases of Donald Trump´s right/populist government in the United States and Nicolas Maduro’s left/populist government in Venezuela. Table 4.1 lists administrations and terms. As noted in the final part of Chapter 1,

Anticorruption Policies Left and Right Table 4.1 Country

Argentina Brazil

Mexico

United States Venezuela

Governments Studied Administration 1

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (L) (12/10/2007–12/9/2015) Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (L) (1/1/2003–1/1/2011) Enrique Peña Nieto (R) (12/1/2012–11/30/2018) Donald Trump (R) (1/20/2017–1/20/2021) Nicolás Maduro (L) (4/19/2013–present)

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Administration 2

Mauricio Macri (R) (12/10/2015–12/10/2019) Jair Bolsonaro (R) (1/1/2018–present) Andrés Manuel López Obrador (L) (12/1/2018–present)

the fact that the time periods vary (both time in office and years) complicates the analysis, making it somewhat difficult to determine with certainty whether changes in policies or approaches stem from changes in our understanding of corruption over time, international changes, or the order of the administration (left after right, or vice versa). Nonetheless, if meaningful ideological differences do exist within the anticorruption policies, an overview of the policies should be able to identify them. Discussion proceeds by country and administration, followed by comparative analysis.

Argentina: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner/Mauricio Macri Fernández de Kirchner

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from the leftist Peronist party entered office in December 2007 assailing the capitalist development model and promising to broaden rights, radicalize democracy by promoting citizen participation through consults and referenda, and end political corruption (Fernández 2017, par. 61). She inherited an anticorruption system featuring Argentina’s Anticorruption Office (OA), the Sindicatura General de la Nación (internal auditing agency), a special prosecutor dedicated to administrative irregularities, a political-electoral reform in late 2006 that raised campaign spending limits and consolidated the accounts of parties, and even a system of property declarations by officials dating back to 1953.

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Like her predecessor and spouse Nestor Kirchner (2003–2007), Fernández de Kirchner exhibited what Bersch (2016) labels as powering reforms: rapid, sweeping changes. But anticorruption during the period remained rather limited, with key measures centering on the professionalization of the bureaucracy and a series of structural and legal reforms. These included the development of a distancelearning public ethics training system handled by OA, the 2009 publication of an ethics manual (Ética, transparencia y lucha contra la corrupción en la administración pública: manual para el ejercicio de la función pública), and Law 26.861/2013 to open hiring in the judicial branch to an open competitive process (MESICIC 2017). In its 2017 report, for example, MESICIC highlighted the country’s progress in its system for hiring public servants. Institutional restructuring featured the 2015 creation of the Secretary for Public Ethics, Transparency and the Fight Against Corruption, located within the OA and reporting directly to the president. On the legal front, the government created a specialized prosecutorial unit to support investigative judges and prosecutors in pursuing economic crimes and asset recovery cases (OECD 2014), established a commission (Decree 678/2012) to develop a comprehensive reform of the criminal code, and amended the penal and tax codes to broaden the categories of corruption-related crimes and penalties. In 2017 two presidential decrees targeting conflict of interest in the judicial and administrative areas incorporated additional oversight mechanisms into the processes related to public contracts, the granting of licenses, permits, and concessions (OA website). It also includes a 2017 reform to the public ethics law strengthening the system of declarations of property holdings and interests of public officials. Even so, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found the government noncompliant with regard to measures concerning transnational bribery (OECD 2014). The report referred to delays in the criminal justice system, the lack of protection for whistleblowers, and the failure of the government to proactively investigate or seek cooperation, and it raised concerns about judicial independence, noting contacts between the executive and judges as well as the use of disciplinary processes to pressure judges and prosecutors (OECD 2014). Similarly, the 2017 Open Government Partnership action plan pointed to the problems associated with the system of property and interest declarations that limited access to

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the information on the evolution of holdings and limited controls (Open Government Partnership–Argentina 2017, 107). Three major reform initiatives under Fernández de Kirchner centered on the media, the judiciary, and the electoral arena. The first two passed congress thanks to majority control by Fernández’s Peronists, but triggered controversy and legal challenges; the third measure failed to gain congressional approval. Though all three initiatives could have been seen as part of a broader anticorruption effort, there is no indication that any of them were touted by the president or the administration as part of her anticorruption agenda. The October 2009 media reform that sought to deregulate the highly concentrated industry and limit the number of licenses any company could hold—a measure that would hit the dominant Clarin media group, a staunch critic of the administration, particularly hard—was instead touted by the administration as an antimonopoly measure (Baud 2013; Natanson 2017; Van Woerden 2012). The judicial reform in April 2013 encompassed a series of six bills including, most notably, a measure to limit the use of injunctions against the state for violating basic rights and another that would have forced twelve of the nineteen magistrates of the Judicial Council charged with appointing and removing judges to affiliate with political parties and stand for election, and another designed to create a new court to limit the number of cases going to the supreme court (see “Argentina’s Judicial Reforms Foiled” 2013). Rather than designed to counter corruption, Fernández de Kirchner claimed the measures centered on modernizing and democratizing the system: “This will give citizens participation in such a way that judges, as well as lawyers and legal experts on the Magistrates Council, will be elected on the basis of article 38 of the national Constitution, which states that political parties are the only road for exercising democracy” (Rebossio 2013). Critics, however, saw these measures as limiting accountability mechanisms by weakening controls over state resources and public officials and by politicizing the judiciary. José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, for example, claimed the reform “would give Argentina’s ruling party an automatic majority on the council that oversees the judiciary, which seriously compromises judicial independence” (Human Rights Watch 2013). As with the media reform, many of these measures were overturned by the courts. The 2009 political reform, in turn, sought to install open and simultaneous primary elections and public financing of campaigns.

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Though again this overhaul could have been promoted as part of an anticorruption initiative to help curb the power of party leaders and the corrupt influence of campaign donations, the government did not frame it as such; instead, it touted the reforms as an effort to expand democracy. Regardless, the measures failed to pass congress because of their potential impact on minor parties and the formation of new parties (Fernández 2017; “Los principales puntos del proyecto oficial” 2009). As we see occurring in other cases, Fernández de Kirchner and members of her government confronted numerous allegations and investigations of corruption spanning her time in office, including the “suitcase” scandal, the “route of the k-money” scandal, the “Hotesur” scandal, and the scandal surrounding Vice President Amado Boudou, among others.2 Generally, rather than promoting investigations in the name of fighting corruption, the government sought to shield itself from the charges by denying the claims, blocking investigations, and/or weakening accountability institutions (see Fernández 2017; Natanson 2017). The 2009 court-ordered investigations of the Kirchners’ wealth that showed declared assets had increased by over 500 percent since 2003, for example, was abruptly suspended a few months after it began. Reportedly, the government tried to impeach the judge heading the Hotesur investigation, made allegations against officials involved in the case, and in 2010 removed private assessors following new claims of illicit gain by the Kirchners in 2007–2008 (Fernández 2017, pars. 67–68). The death of the federal prosecutor—a day prior to testifying before congress—in the government’s alleged cover-up involving Iran’s involvement in the bombing of the Jewish community center not only prompted Fernández de Kirchner to blame rogue agents of the Secretary of Intelligence, try to dissolve the agency, and suspend the investigation by a judge but also triggered rumors that among the papers found on the slain prosecutor was a draft arrest warrant for the president (see Turner 2015a, 2015b; Blank 2015; Watts 2015; “Argentina Prosecutor Nisman ‘Planned Warrant’ for President Fernández” 2015). According to Alberto Fernández (2017, par. 68): “The Argentina of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was a place in which the controls were relaxed until they became mere formalities.” Combined, the scandals and the government’s efforts to shield the president and other officials from investigations contributed to a weakening and undermining of the government’s professed desire to

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fight corruption. This further added to what many critics saw as systematic efforts by the president to concentrate political power, politicize the judiciary, and weaken accountability mechanisms. Indeed, Manzetti (2014) concludes that the center-left governments under both Kirchners centralized authority and undermined constitutional checks, thus allowing corruption to go unchecked. Macri

Picking up on that point, the presidential campaign of Mauricio Macri in Argentina in 2015 stressed the deep-seated corruption of the prior two Kirchner governments. It accused the two governments of awarding public works contracts to a small circle of friends and allies and to channeling funds to party coffers and select individuals. The Macri campaign successfully converted the saying “se robaron todo” [they stole everything] into a simple yet effective refrain of antiKirchnerism (Stefanoni 2019). More specifically, as laid out in Macri’s initial “State of the State” report (Government of Argentina 2015), the government spotlighted examples of the lack of transparency, inefficiency, and “many cases of corruption” in “every area of government” (p. 9). It claimed that “instead of controlling management and preventing acts of corruption, [the institutions] were employed on occasions as instruments in the political struggle to favor officials and were dismantled when they became threatening to those in the government” (p. 31). Both the OA and the Sindicatura, it further asserted, were stripped of resources and blocked from investigating suspected corruption (p. 37) while the attorney general’s office removed prosecutors who sought to investigate the government (p. 37). It also linked a substantial increase in public employment—from 2.2 million in 2003 to 3.6 million in 2015—to clientelism, waste, and corruption, effectively putting the state at the service of political militancy (p. 9): a form, it claims, of state capture. But beyond characterizing the problem, the “State of the State” document offers very little in terms of the new government’s anticorruption plan, noting merely the need to strengthen judicial independence and the OA, a new law on public procurement, and the development of suppliers to break the pockets of corruption and improve governmental efficiency (p. 31). Among the government’s 100 priorities laid out in “Government Objectives for 2017” (Government of Argentina 2016), number 79 states in equally vague terms

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that “Corruption negatively impacts development and worsens the quality of life of those already suffering. To advance against corruption, we are implementing a strategic plan of transparency and institutional strengthening that requires the collaboration of all levels of the State.” Many of the anticorruption initiatives under Macri’s government are outlined in retrospect in the government’s National Anticorruption Plan (2019–2023) (Government of Argentina 2019). Crafted by the OA and the Secretary of Institutional Strengthening within the office of the Chief of the Cabinet as Decree 258/2019, the Anticorruption Plan was only issued in April 2019, a mere six months prior to Macri’s unsuccessful bid to win reelection. First, the document characterizes the government’s anticorruption policies as being in close alignment with the UN, OAS, and OECD international accords on corruption, organized crime, and money laundering. Second, the report placed particular emphasis on applauding transparency reforms, including the 2016 passage of a major access-to-information law applicable to all three branches of government and the creation of a specialized agency charged with its implementation. The government also decreed that all executive agencies make information public using the National Portal of Public Data, including the property declarations of officials, salaries of contracted officials and salary tables, government purchases and contracts, and requests for information. Third, in the area of preventive measures, the government’s 2016 State Modernization Plan promoted the use of digital technology, an enhanced human resource management system, the principles of open government and innovation, and the introduction of the principles of new public management evaluating results. The reform also launched an electronic document management system and through the use of these technologies made transfers easier and more transparent. Two years later, the government passed a series of laws to further simplify, modify, and de-bureaucratize the administration. These measures mandated the declaration of interests and ties to high-level officials by anyone with a judicial or extrajudicial case against the state or interested in obtaining a government contract, concession, or any other form of state authorization. Beginning in 2016, the government also incorporated a new system of public contracting, which it strengthened again in 2018 by consolidating a national office of contracting and conducting evaluations of the execution of projects at the provincial and municipal levels. In 2018 it also produced good governance guidelines for state-owned enterprises based on OECD recommendations.

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Beyond these preventive measures, the government also made changes to strengthen the law and the investigation and sanctioning of corruption. The government issued a decree in 2016 regulating gifts to public officials and an antinepotism decree in 2018 that prevented the appointment of individuals related to the president, vice president, cabinet officials, and other high-level officials, including spouses. The government also revised the penal code in 2016 to permit a reduction in sentencing in exchange for testimony, passed a whistleblower protection law in 2016 (MESICIC 2017), and approved a corporate liability law in 2017 that encouraged and rewarded businesses for implementing integrity programs and cooperating with authorities investigating individuals within the company. In 2018 the congress passed a law for the defense of competition to strengthen controls and the investigation of anticompetitive and collusive practices: a point it touted as part of its anticorruption policy. And in 2019 the government issued a decree allowing for the seizing of properties obtained by corruption, drug or human trafficking, kidnapping, or terrorism. According to the head of the OA, the government opened more than a thousand investigations over the period, including against former presidents and high-level officials (see “An Interview with Laura Alonso” 2019). Finally, on the institutional front, in 2018 the government created the Secretary of Institutional Strengthening within the office of chief of cabinet ministers to coordinate the integrity efforts of the key institutions (the OA, Sindicatura, Agency for Access to Public Information, Secretary of Public Employment, Secretary of Public Innovation, and Prosecutor of the Treasury). It also strengthened the auditing role of the Sindicatura and mapped corruption risks within the administration, restructured the OA, and altered the focus of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) to concentrate on risks in accordance to international standards. Because Macri was not reelected, the National Anticorruption Plan (2019–2023) failed to serve as a planning document. Still, it does highlight Macri’s thinking regarding the struggle against corruption. Generally, the 260 initiatives noted in the document tended to focus primarily on institutional strengthening and the modernization of the state. It also proposed the creation of an advisory council composed of representatives from civil society and business to followup on the proposed anticorruption measures. It should be noted that the appearance of a plan in 2019, in the last year of Macri’s term, testifies to the continuing problem of corruption in Argentina and its

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ongoing importance as a campaign issue despite the fact that Macri had by then served four years in office. Though hardly wrapped up in the corruption scandals that plagued his predecessor, Macri nonetheless faced accusations of political interference in the judiciary akin to those against Fernández de Kirchner. Raising concerns about the enforcement of Argentina’s foreign bribery laws and its noncompliance with the OECD convention—for instance the OECD Working Group on Bribery in 2019—pointed to “signs of politicization and lack of neutrality of the Attorney General’s office” (OECD 2019, 4). Indeed, soon after the election, Macri stated an intention to force the resignation of the attorney general, despite the fact that it is a civil-servant position and independent of the executive. His subsequent “commission” appointments to fill two seats in the supreme court bypassing the senate also triggered controversy and allegations of political interference. A year later, in 2017, reports surfaced of irregularities in the financing of the Macri campaign from government contractors and ghost donors.

Brazil: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva/Jair Bolsonaro In contrast to Argentina’s abrupt “pushing” reformist style, analysts tend to classify anticorruption reforms in Brazil as gradual, sequenced, and piecemeal (see Arellano Gault 2017; Carson and Prado 2016; Bersch 2016; Praca and Taylor 2014). Such reforms, they note, often come from within the bureaucracy, rendering executive leadership less important (Praca and Taylor 2014), and focus mainly on the gradual strengthening of the capacity and autonomy of key anticorruption institutions such as the Federal Police, the attorney general’s office (MP), and judges, often in compliance with and in cooperation with international organizations and agreements (Arellano Gault 2017; Carson and Prado 2016). Lula

Unlike most of Brazil’s traditional parties then or now, at the time of the 2002 electoral campaign both Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”) and the emerging PT (Workers Party) were largely untainted by corruption. Despite this image, his campaign stressed the issues of poverty, inequality, and exclusion more so than fighting corruption.

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Once in office, the Lula government initiated a number of anticorruption reform measures and, perhaps even more importantly, permitted and in some cases facilitated the continued pace of piecemeal reforms taking place within key institutions. This was particularly true during Lula’s first term. Praca and Taylor (2014, 40), in fact, call accountability a “hallmark of Lula’s first term.” Among the reforms, in 2003, continuing an initiative developed by his predecessor, Lula strengthened the recently created Office of the Comptroller General (CGU),3 endowing it with a stronger and more qualified workforce, upgrading it to ministerial status, fomenting its cooperation with the federal police (FP), and initiating a system of randomized municipal audits. Lula also helped strengthen these and other anticorruption institutions by respecting the naming of key officials by experts incorporated into the selection process (selecting, for instance, the candidate graded highest by the prosecutorial office to head the MP), promoting professionalization and capacity-building measures, and increasing salaries throughout the bureaucracy. Among the many outcomes, these measures resulted in an increase in the number of audits and in the number of arrests and convictions for corruption (Ferraz and Finan 2008). Data on expulsive sanctions applied to civil servants, for example, showed a steady increase from 2003 to 2014, despite lengthy delays and few reinstatements (Odilla 2020). New investigations and meta-operations during the initial years, particularly against money laundering, also helped strengthen the role and autonomy of the CGU and FP. While the Lula government showed limited inclination to investigate and expose corruption among high-level officials of the prior government or the private sector due largely to Lula’s alliances with construction companies,4 in 2004 he promoted a major judicial reform designed to enhance accountability in response to scandals of corruption within the judiciary and the government’s Operation Anaconda targeting corrupt judges (Praca and Taylor 2014). Overall, as Praca (2020) highlights, the major anticorruption institutions gained autonomy and capacity during the period. According to a former official, much of Lula’s anticorruption efforts, reflecting a “progressive international anti-corruption agenda,” focused primarily on transparency and money laundering.5 Among his most important initiatives was the 2003 National Strategy to Combat Corruption and Money Laundering (ENCCLA). ENCCLA offered an integrated and coordinated strategy that brought together more than sixty federal and state-level entities in all branches of government

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and society to diagnose problems and propose legal, operational, and technological solutions. Consistent with the government’s broader pattern of strengthening the capacity and autonomy of the major anticorruption agencies in the government, ENCCLA produced legal reforms (third-generation legislation) that better encompassed offenses in the area of money laundering and the creation of the Financial System Customer’s Registry, the Seized Assets National System (SNBA), the Qualification and Training National Program for combatting corruption and money laundering, and the Laboratory of Technology Against Money Laundering. In addition, it forged specialized units within the FP, federal prosecutors office, and the judiciary on anti–money laundering, led to Decree 5,483/2005 allowing the administration to oversee the patrimonial evaluation of public officials, and strengthened ties to private entities and to the international community’s focus on anti–money laundering. Though the program initially focused on money laundering, by 2007 it broadened to incorporate corruption with an emphasis on public participation and transparency (Yumi de Souza 2015). But as seen earlier in the case of Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina and later in that of Peña Nieto in Mexico, scandal and allegations of corruption against the Lula government and the ruling PT seemingly interrupted and undermined much of Lula’s anticorruption reforms. Two scandals, both emerging in 2004, stand out: the dos Sanguessugas (ambulance mafia) case and the Mensalao (monthly pay) scandal. Uncovered by CGU municipal audits, the subsequent FP investigation, and a congressional inquiry, the dos Sanguessugas scandal ran from 2004 to 2006. It revealed how a group of public officials, including members of congress, had orchestrated the systematic diversion of public funds for the purchase of more than a thousand ambulances with roughly 120 percent markups on the contracts. Reminiscent of earlier scandals rocking the Collor (1990–1992) and Cardoso (1995–2002) administrations,6 the much higher-profile Mensalao scandal involved the system of monthly payments to members of Congress in return for their support for key legislative initiatives. Amid ongoing press reports, revelations, investigations, trials, and appeals, the scandal not only consumed much of Lula’s remaining time in office (it was not completed until December 2012, when twenty-five officials were found guilty) but also tarnished his and the PT’s anticorruption image. The scandal resulted in charges being brought against forty officials, including Lula himself, and led to the

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resignation of and/or charges against the president’s chief of staff, other key advisors, and several members of congress, including from the PT. Though Lula escaped prosecution in this case, claiming a lack of knowledge of the scheme, “the scandal led the executive branch to decrease its emphasis on accountability reforms” (Praca and Taylor 2014, 39). The scandal also frustrated PT supporters by showing their party to be no different from the others while also crystallizing the structural underpinnings of corruption in Brazil.7 Amid the scandals, Lula initially reacted by dismissing the prosecutions as “a fiction and a political witch-hunt.” There were even allegations that he sought to blackmail supreme court justices to cripple the investigations (Michener and Pereira 2016, 483). But despite (or because of) such scandals, the Lula government did oversee two meaningful reforms: a freedom of information law in 2009 (approved in 2011) and the Clean Record Law in 2010. The freedom of information law guarantees access to information on public finances, contracts, programs, and projects, applies to all levels of the government, and establishes deadlines and rules classifying when information would become public. The Clean Record Law, referred to by Brazil expert Timothy Powers as “the biggest single advance against corruption that Brazil has ever had” (Clausen 2012, 116), bars candidates from running for public office for eight years if they have been convicted of a serious crime, lost their political positions due to corruption, or resigned to avoid impeachment. However, as often occurs amid public scandals, both laws were largely the result of citizens and civil society, not the Lula government. The long road to approve the freedom of information law benefited from the support of civil society organizations such as Article 19 (Mazotte n.d.). The Clean Record initiative that began in 2009 was coordinated by the Movimiento Contra a Corrupcao Electoral, representing over forty civil-society organizations, and involved a public campaign that collected over a million citizen signatures (Michener and Pereira 2016). Ironically, it is this critical law that subsequently would prevent Lula from running for president in 2018 owing to his own legal case of corruption. Bolsonaro

Seven years after Lula’s government and now in the wake of the massive Lava Jato scandal, Jair Bolsonaro campaigned on a platform emphasizing corruption. Beyond characterizing systemic corruption

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as a product of the multiple PT governments and the left, as noted in the prior chapter, Bolsonaro spoke broadly of what he referred to as the “corruption of democracy,” with the left essentially capturing the state bureaucracy, elections, civil society, and even universities (Fogel 2019). As stated in his campaign platform: “After 30 years of the left having corrupted democracy and stagnating the economy, we will make an alliance of order and progress: a liberal democratic government” (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 10). Bolsonaro’s anticorruption initiatives to date are a mix of orthodox institutional measures and some rather unorthodox measures related to his right-populist perspective on corruption. Many analysts, however, not only point to the lack of progress on the promised anticorruption reforms but also contend that many of the government’s reforms actually undermine the fight against corruption. Orthodox anticorruption measures, as reported by Transparency Brazil (Franco 2019b) and incorporated into Brazil’s 4th Plan of Action under the Open Government Partnership, include Supplementary Law n. 131/2009, which boosts transparency and accountability on fiscal management for all federative entities, a decree prohibiting nominations within the executive of anyone ineligible according to the criteria established by the Clean Record law, and the strengthening of the federal police and corruption investigations with the hiring of 1,200 agents and the creation of twenty-nine police units specializing in anticorruption in eighteen states. In addition, the CGU made improvements to the ombudsman system at the federal, state, and municipal levels; strengthened protections for whistleblowers; and developed a digital platform allowing for more effective responses to corruption complaints. It also drafted a decree to regulate lobbying of the executive branch, though apparently the measure was never officially decreed. Bolsonaro also signed a provisional measure titled Economic Freedom on de-bureaucratization that seeks to digitize certain government procedures and curb the privileges enjoyed by the public sector (Flor 2020). The government even sought to remove the “foro privelegiado” of members of congress that shielded them from prosecution while in office, though the measure failed to gain needed support in congress (Kolling 2019). Similar sorts of measures centering mainly on transparency and the use of technology in government were incorporated into Brazil’s 4th Action Plan 2018–2020 (Open Government Partnership–Brazil, 2018). Among the commitments was the development of open data, open science, climate change

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measures, and legislative transparency, extending increasing access to information to state and municipal levels by developing a national electronic system for information requests. As will be shown, such moves are strikingly similar to those promoted by the Trump administration in the United States in the same forum. According to Franco (2019a) of TI-Brazil, despite having been elected on an anticorruption platform, no progress was made in the implementation of an anticorruption agenda during the first ten months of the Bolsonaro government. Indeed, Bolsonaro failed to act on his central anticorruption promise made during the campaign: to rescue and adopt the “Ten Measures Against Corruption” originally crafted by civil-society organizations and put forward by the public prosecutors’ office in 2015 (Bolsonaro Campaign Platform 2018, 35; Mohallem et al. 2018). Instead, in February 2018 the justice minister—Sergio Moro, the leading investigative judge in the Lava Jato case—presented a major proposal to attack corruption, organized crime, and violent crime. This proposal, however, focused almost exclusively on crime rather than corruption. Signed into law in December 2019, the reform increased the severity of penalties for white-collar crimes, made it easier for the government to confiscate properties incompatible with income, limited the right of appeal, and altered rules on special legal standing. The government, however, dropped a proposal to criminalize parallel funding for campaigns (Bullock 2019; Merkel and Pittari 2019). Beyond these efforts, the Bolsonaro government has also pursued a series of rather unorthodox reforms that, according to the government, are designed to fight corruption. Consistent with his promise to “end activism” by the left—part of what Bolsonaro sees as the corruption of democracy by the left—for example, it sought sweeping powers to monitor civil-society organizations (CSOs), though the measure failed. Still, the government was able to eliminate hundreds of public-policy councils, ending the institutional role of many CSOs in co-governance arrangements, though this decree was also temporarily revoked by the supreme court (Franco 2019b). In addition, the government pressured Brazilian universities and harassed the press. According to Franco (2019b, 36), Bolsonaro has “routinely interfered with the nomination of deans of federal universities.” Going even further, in 2020, referring to the institutional sabotage of the president’s agenda and the need to address the problem of corrupt democracy (Fogel 2020), Bolsonaro sought to mobilize

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popular support against congress and the supreme court. A video on the social media site WhatsApp sent by Bolsonaro, for instance, claims that the president “is fighting the corrupt and murderous left for us. He endures smears and lies because he’s doing his best for us. . . . Let’s show that we support Bolsonaro and reject the enemies of Brazil.” In a similar vein, chief investigator Delton Dallagnol publicly attacked congress in the build-up to a pro-Bolsonaro march, claiming it to be the single greatest obstacle in the fight against corruption in Brazil (Fogel 2020). Similar to the pattern found in other cases, allegations of corruption, this time against members of Bolsonaro’s family, seemingly undermined Bolsonaro’s anticorruption agenda and legitimacy. This led, in some cases, to a reversal of the anticorruption gains of recent years.8 The title of a July 25, 2019, article in The Economist brutally underlines the conclusion: “Jair Bolsonaro has given up on his antigraft crusade.” But more than “giving up,” according to some, the Bolsonaro government has pursued a series of reforms that arguably undermine and backtrack on important transparency and accountability progress. The access to information decree of 2018, for example, rather than promoting transparency, nearly doubled the number of public officials able to declare information confidential, classified “top secret” documents for twenty-five years and “secret” documents for fifteen years, and stipulates that the officials who can make these designations “now include certain politically appointed positions in the executive branch” (Bullock 2019; Franco 2019a). As part of a restructuring of the Office of Comptroller General, Bolsonaro closed down its sectoral inspectorates responsible for monitoring the flow, quality, and efficiency of disciplinary procedures in each ministry (Odilla 2020). The decree eliminating hundreds of public-policy councils, noted earlier, also weakened institutional tools designed to enhance transparency and incorporate civil society into policymaking and overseeing the government. Even the councils that were allowed to continue occupied a reduced space for participation (Franco 2019a). At the same time, Bolsonaro pursued a series of measures that weaken the ability of key anticorruption institutions to investigate and sanction those involved in corruption. This includes political interference in the appointments and dismissals of officials in the FP, the Federal Revenue Service, and the public prosecutor’s office (Franco 2019b; Vigna 2020). Bolsonaro, for instance, broke with the tradition of appointing the prosecutor-general from a shortlist selected through

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a process organized by the National Association of Federal Prosecutors, naming a loyalist instead (Franco 2019a). One account avers that “Bolsonaro is also trying to curtail the autonomy of the Federal Police and the Federal Customs Agency, pushing for a broad leadership change and overruling decisions by his justice minister, Sérgio Moro” (Simon 2019). Many such moves center on investigations into corruption by members of the president´s family. For example, he allegedly removed officials from the branch of the FP investigating his son Flavio and stripped the agency that discovered the irregular financial movements of much of its authority. As Miranda (2019) notes: “The president has all but relinquished his reputation as an anti-corruption crusader with his now-obvious fixation on ensuring that no investigation is permitted to proceed.” But it is not just the Bolsonaro government. Concerned that anticorruption investigations have gone too far, threatening the political elite, others also have acted to limit anticorruption laws and institutions. Congress passed an abuse of authority law in September 2019, for instance, that makes it harder for prosecutors to pursue anticorruption cases by making it possible to punish anyone making allegations without strong evidence. Initially drafted by members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) Party threatened by the Lava Jato investigation and periodically resurrected whenever the investigations got too close, many consider the law an effort to cow prosecutors.9 Franco (2019b) characterizes in similar terms a series of congressional actions detrimental to the independence of law-enforcement agents and the accountability of political parties. Even beyond congress, in 2019 “the Central Bank proposed relaxing the rules for monitoring the finances of public officials” (Carneiro 2019). In a similar manner, the supreme court issued an injunction that virtually paralyzed the nation’s anti–money laundering system and conducted an illegal inquiry secretly investigating law-enforcement agents. This trend culminated in the ending of the Lava Jato investigation in 2020. Bolsonaro played an important role in this, declaring “there is no more corruption in my government.” According to Rocha de Barros (2020), ending the investigation was part of the president’s effort to forge a comfortable relationship with the establishment figures he derided during the campaign, part of his campaign attacking congress, the supreme court, and the press and, more importantly, “He is fighting Lava Jato because he is afraid that he—or his family members—might go to jail.”

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Mexico: Enrique Peña Nieto/Andrés Manuel López Obrador Peña Nieto

Though fighting corruption was neither included as one of his three national goals nor hardly addressed in Peña Nieto´s (2012) campaign book, it was incorporated into the Pact for Mexico (2012) negotiated with the leaders of the nation’s major parties and signed one day after inauguration in December 2012. Sporting five accords and ninetyfive commitments, the pact laid out the president’s major anticorruption proposals, going well beyond those noted in the national development plan analyzed earlier. Specifically, the fourth accord, “Transparency, Accountability and the Combatting of Corruption,” called for: (1) the establishment of common rules and mechanisms assuring transparency of public spending at all three levels of the government (commitment #82); (2) a constitutional reform to grant autonomy and broaden the powers of the federal access to information agency to encompass all federal agencies, to review the decisions of the local access to information agencies and to decide cases of national relevance (commitment #83), and to make state-level agencies autonomous, composed of specialists in transparency (commitment #84); and (3) the creation of a national system featuring a national commission and state commissions with the power to prevent, investigate, and sanction acts of corruption, with special emphasis on the two largest state-owned enterprises, Pemex and CFE (commitment #85), along with a National Council for Public Ethics made up of state authorities and members of civil society charged with overseeing anticorruption efforts (commitment #86). In conjunction with the initiatives contained in the pact and pending the approval of the proposed national commission, the president also pushed through congress a measure to eliminate the major anticorruption agency at the time, the Secretary of Public Affairs (SFP), farming out its function to other agencies. Mexico’s 2nd Action Plan 2013–2015 under the Open Government Partnership also touched on the government’s priorities, though few related directly to the issue of fighting corruption. Commitments focused largely on the collection of information, transparency, the use of technology, and the simplification and consolidation of citizen services. The document committed the government to citizen empowerment and citizen participation in budgeting and other areas, though

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it seems to reduce citizen empowerment specifically to democratizing scholarship programs and providing greater support for education. Whereas some discussions of the proposed anticorruption commission had begun in congress during the ensuring year, most attention centered on the other major structural reform initiatives contained in the pact (energy, fiscal, education). With the SFP in limbo and reduced to insignificance, the president did not present major anticorruption legislative proposals until well into his term and after two major scandals that would significantly tarnish the president’s image and strip him of much control over the reformist process that emerged: the September 2014 disappearance of forty-three students from the teaching college in Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero and the November report that the president and his wife’s major residence, Casa Blanca, had been built and financed at favorable terms by a major government contractor. In response to the scandals, and in an effort to garner legitimacy and recapture the initiative, in February 2015 Peña Nieto issued an executive order to “prevent corruption and avoid conflict of interests.” The measure called for a broadening of the disclosure statements made by public officials beyond property holding to include a statement of potential conflicts of interest, the creation of a government unit skilled in ethics and prevention of conflict of interest to coordinate the work of specialized committees set up in each federal agency; the drafting of “Integrity Rules for the Conduct of Public Affairs” and “contact protocols” between government officials and the private sector; the identification of all officials involved in government contract bidding; the establishment of a one-stop-shop window for government services and procedures; the publication of a list of providers who had been sanctioned; and greater collaboration with the private sector in transparency. At the same time, the president reversed course on the elimination of the SFP, appointing a new secretary who was immediately tasked with investigating the allegations of conflict of interest in the Casa Blanca scandal (Hill Mayora 2016). In August 2015, as corruption scandals involving allied governors began to dominate the headlines and a day before the results of the Casa Blanca investigation were released, the president issued another series of executive reforms. Such measures included the publication of a code of ethics for federal officials, which laid out five principles (legality, honesty, loyalty, impartiality, and efficiency) and eleven values, the aforementioned Integrity Rules (twelve rules dealing with

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everyday work) and the general instructions on the creation of an ethics and prevention of conflict of interest committee in each federal agency. In October, the government officially created the Specialized Unit on Ethics and Prevention of Conflict of Interest in the Secretary of Public Affairs office. At the same time that the government was trying to regain the initiative and restore its anticorruption credibility while fighting off charges of wrongdoing, the president was engaging in a series of efforts to distort and obstruct the investigations into his government and close allies. In response to allegations of a system of corruption involving transfers of federal funds to the states, which then, using ghost companies, diverted funds to help finance Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) electoral campaigns, implicating officials within his own government and party, the government pressured the government of Chihuahua in 2018 to share information from its investigation, failed to act on extradition requests by the state’s attorney general targeting the former governor turned fugitive, fired the special federal prosecutor for electoral crimes, and through a supreme court ruling blocked the state from conducting an investigation against state officials, calling it a federal matter (see Esquivel 2020; Mayorga 2020). By 2015 the political situation had increasingly spiraled beyond the control of the president. The growing scandals, demonstrating the depths of corruption within the government, promoted civil-society organizations and the public to push forward a series of major constitutional and legal reforms that led to the creation of Mexico’s National Anticorruption System (SNA). The system featured the creation of autonomous agencies at all levels of government, high-level coordination led by a citizen council, and a strengthening of laws and sanctions against corrupt officials. The president had limited control over the agenda or the initiatives, though some of the measures clearly reflect and grow out of the earlier ideas found in the Pact for Mexico. Three aspects seem to characterize Peña Nieto´s anticorruption initiatives. First, the initiatives center primarily on administrative and budgetary matters. They do not encompass abuse of authority, vote buying and coercion, use of social programs, influence trafficking, use of privileged information, or corruption in the judiciary or other areas (Fundar 2012). As future secretary of public affairs (under López Obrador) Irma Sandoval-Ballesteros (2012) notes, the initiatives failed to focus on the people and companies that received fiscal credits from the tax administration office, SAT, the problem of

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lack of transparency, public-private associations, no-bid contracts in Pemex or whistleblower protections. Nor do they highlight corruption among businesses (Bohórquez 2013). Moreover, the newfound focus on conflict of interest occurred only after the allegations against the president in the Casa Blanca scandal. Second, the initiatives tended to centralize and concentrate power in the executive, especially punitive and police powers. This included the proposed measure to allow ministers to appoint compliance inspectors (Órganos Internos de Control) charged with monitoring operations within their own ministry as well as the president’s continued control over the internal anticorruption agency, the SFP, and the attorney general’s office (Fundar 2012). Part of the problem here was revealed when the newly appointed secretary of the rescued SFP, charged with investigating Casa Blanca, in 2015 fully exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Centralizing controls could also be seen in the president’s proposal for the ethics commission called for in the pact, which was to be presided over by the president and include governors, leaders of congress, secretaries of government and treasury, and just two members from civil society. Third, the initiatives lacked significant civil society or citizen involvement. Not only was the ethics commission designed to have merely two citizens, as noted, but there was no citizen involvement in the elaboration of the president’s anticorruption proposals, nor did the proposals themselves call for a major role for citizens in the fight against corruption. López Obrador

The previous chapter highlights how López Obrador’s campaign emphasized the problem of corruption, his promise to fight it, and his proposed strategies as incorporated into the government’s national development plan (PND).10 Thanks to majority control of congress by the president’s party and allies, the government brought about a series of legal and institutional changes designed, according to the president, to curb corruption. Some passed the new congress controlled by the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) even before the president took office. Led by former UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) corruption scholar and now secretary of the SFP Irma Sandoval-Ballesteros, the López Obrador government understands

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corruption as “a phenomenon of the social domination of an economic and political elite, and not just the consequence of bureaucratic treachery” (SFP 2020, 7). As such, the office focuses priority attention on: (1) the influence and privileges of economic interests by combatting conflict of interest, auditing and sanctioning private-sector officials involved in corrupt government contracting, cracking down on fiscal evasion, eliminating special government suspension of taxes to big business, and collecting past due amounts; (2) strengthening property and interest declarations of officials to detect irregularities and identify potential conflict of interest, while curtailing the privileges and pay of the political elite; (3) increasing oversight, internal assessments, investigations, and sanctioning of public servants; (4) increasing citizen involvement through a variety of programs designed to enhance social oversight, facilitate citizen and insider reports of corruption, improve integrity in business in exchange for consideration for government contracts, and attend to the victims of corruption; (5) an expansive-democratic notion of transparency that seeks to ensure that the information provided by government agencies goes beyond legal compliance and is needed and useful to citizens; and (6) professionalization of the bureaucracy to ensure compliance with norms and prevent its utilization by economic or political elite in corruption. Strengthening controls over politicians and high-level bureaucrats, the government’s controversial austerity law, for example, eliminates special funds used at the discretion of members of congress that facilitated kickbacks (known as moches), prevents highlevel officials from working in firms until ten years after leaving office, and cancels specially created trusts (fideicomisos) that had long operated opaquely and, according to the president, represented an institutional device facilitating corruption (“Celebra la SFP decreto presidencial que elimina fideicomisos” 2020). It significantly reduces the amounts spent on government publicity by two-thirds and prohibits the executive from providing special tax concessions and forgiveness to businesses: a form of legal corruption widely used by prior administrations. The austerity law also reduced salaries and benefits paid to high-level government officials, eliminated a range of positions in the government and the ability of top officials to create positions easily, and consolidated certain functions such as public contracting within the Treasury both to save money through bulk purchases and to decrease the levels of corruption (González Amador

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2019). As part of this broader effort, in early 2020 the president’s party, MORENA, presented a conflict-of-interest law that would prohibit contracts to firms linked to officials and family members or where officials had worked during the two years prior to entering government (Méndez 2020). The government also pursued measures to enhance requirements for public officials to declare property holdings and interests and to make such declarations and all salaries of public officials publicly available and easily accessible. Much of the government’s anticorruption approach in the area of transparency and citizen involvement is reflected in Mexico’s 4th Plan of Action 2019–2021 under the Open Government Partnership– Mexico (2019). With a stronger emphasis on corruption than the plan crafted under Peña Nieto—corruption was one of the six tables of cocreation—the commitments highlight proactive transparency and citizen participation.11 Commitments encompass a broadening of the use of citizen participation to strengthen oversight; identify risks and probable acts of corruption in social programs (p. 20); proactive transparency in various areas such as education, labor, public security, and forest and fishing management; a strategy of proactive transparency targeting fideicomisos (special trusts) specifically designed to combat corruption and impunity (p. 12); the development of a strategy of proactive transparency to control corruption in customs and in the trafficking of arms (p. 43); and information on final beneficiaries (p. 41).12 Related yet much more controversial preventive measures entail initiatives to eliminate government intermediaries, dismantle corrupt networks engaged in government contracts, or eliminate entire initiatives and entities deemed the source of corruption and waste. The government eliminated payments to intermediaries because they were considered a foundation of corruption, preferring to provide aid directly to recipients. Such a move critically impacted, for instance, childcare programs. The government also eliminated prior purchasing arrangements for medicines, striking at the pharmaceutical giants for the corrupt system, and attacked private foundations involved in the supply process—moves that contributed to a shortage of supplies in hospitals (Raphael 2020). In addition, the government dismantled many fideicomisos. Following an initial decree eliminating those not tied to specific parts of the government with line item funding, legislation to eliminate an additional 109 fideicomisos in late 2020 sparked considerable controversy and nurtured distrust.13 In addition,

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the government cancelled construction of the new international airport in Mexico City begun under Peña Nieto. While it cited environmental issues, its major concern centered on as-of-yet undisclosed or verified acts of corruption. Subsequent audits, however, would confirm irregularities involving more than Mex$19 million related to contracts for the canceled airport (SFP 2020, 13). Still, such moves have attracted ample criticism. In a somewhat similar manner, López Obrador has also raised questions regarding the cost and utility of autonomous entities, linking their creation to a policy of cooptation and “the buying of consciences,” facilitating corruption and a waste of resources (CPC 2020). These attacks have targeted the National Anticorruption System (SNA), such anticorruption-related autonomous organizations as the National Electoral Institute (INE) and the Institute for Access to Information (INAI), and regulatory commissions such as the antimonopoly commission (Cofece) and the commission on energy policy (Coner), among others (“Defiende cruz lesbros valía del SNA y del INAI” 2020).14 One account suggests the president called on eliminating more than 100 autonomous organs (“AMLO analiza desaparecer más de 100 organismos autónomos y presentar reforma constitucional” 2020). One indication of López Obrador’s approach to fighting corruption (which builds on findings from Chapter 3) centers on overturning policies from previous administrations favoring the private sector that he deems as corrupt. These range from the elimination of programs granting tax concessions to businesses and the elimination of pharmaceutical suppliers, prompting shortage, to investigations of questionable contracts in Pemex. In 2020, for instance, the government, through the SAT, took aim at companies that had failed to pay taxes in previous years; it brought charges against forty-three companies dedicated to creating false documents used to evade taxes and the triangulation of corrupt funds (Urrutia and Muñoz 2020). In his bid to bolster state support for the state-owned companies in the energy sector (Pemex and CFE), for instance, López Obrador claims that the purpose of the neoliberal period was to leave the energy market in the hands of private industry and thereby cripple Pemex and CFE. In publicly decrying the corruption, he highlights the involvement of past officials in the private industries that benefited from such policies, pointing specifically to the official involvement of the former secretary of energy and former president Felipe de Jesús Calderón in the

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wind energy company Iberdrola following a supreme court ruling in favor of the company. Given the judicial decision, the president stressed the need for a constitutional reform (“AMLO va por reforma constitucional para que se aplique su política energética” 2020). The preventive measures initiated by the Secretary of Public Affairs concentrate more on the administrative side of the equation. These include an increase in the number and nature of audits, with special attention to high-risk areas, external audits with attention to program evaluation, and on-site visits to evaluate controls centered primarily on priority programs (SFP 2020, 14, 17). Via the Integral System of Information on Program Beneficiary Lists (SIIPP-G), the SFP also evaluates and audits the list of citizens enrolled in major social programs (SFP 2020, 18). The focus on enhancing citizen participation, a major priority of the SFP, fostered the creation of the office of General Coordinator of Citizenization and Attention to the Victims of Corruption. It oversees an overhaul of social comptroller programs; a business integrity program to push and assist firms involved in government contracts to develop internal anticorruption mechanisms and ethics programs, offering recognition and preferential treatment in government contracts to those who meet defined benchmarks; strengthened processes and apps to receive public reports of corruption and a new whistleblower protection program that ensures anonymity, job security, counseling, and follow-up mechanisms;15 the creation of an office to defend public officials charged for corruption and special programs to attend to victims of corruption; and Mexico’s renewed participation in the Open Government Partnership–Mexico (2019), resulting in its 2019–2021 compromises (SFP 2020, 18). Though to date promised legislative action to overhaul the government’s poorly implemented civil-service system crafted in 2003 has yet to be made, the agency nonetheless developed a large training and capacity-building program for government officials, promoted gender balance in hiring, and strengthened professional performance evaluation (see SFP 2019, 2020). Enhanced training, particularly in the area of social comptroller activities and the internal control offices (OIC), includes the System of Virtual Training for Public Servants (Sicavisp), launched in May 2020. On the punitive side, the government has promoted a series of measures to strengthen existing laws against corruption, bolster the government’s investigatory tools, and strengthen prosecution. The government reclassified certain forms of corruption as felonies,

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including the fabrication of official tax receipts and documents (a key tool behind scandals during the previous administration of diverting public funds); passed an asset forfeiture law to confiscate property acquired with corrupt funds; and instituted measures to eliminate certain forms of institutionalized extortion by officials acquiring kickbacks from businesses or local governments (Villamil 2018) and to strip presidential immunity from prosecution. The government also passed laws to return Órganos Internos de Control to the Secretary of Public Affairs while strengthening its powers to conduct investigations of and sanction administrative irregularities and a revision to the institution credit law that facilitated the ability of the Financial Intelligence Unit to freeze accounts thought to be involved in money laundering and corruption (“Con la venia de AMLO, va la ley Nieto” 2019). At least during the government’s initial years, such measures helped facilitate an increase and expansion of internal audits, site visits, investigations, and sanctions. Surpassing prior years, for example, in 2019 the SFP received over 30,000 complaints, initiated more than 22,000 investigations, made roughly 10,000 observations of possible irregularities based on 2,401 oversight actions and internal audits, brought 128 criminal charges for possible corruption before the attorney general’s office, and issued 316 sanctions against government suppliers and private-sector actors involved in bids and contracts, as well as more than 4,700 sanctions against public servants, including 1,504 disqualifications, 992 suspensions, 392 economic sanctions, and 277 firings.16 The following year surpassed those numbers. Between September 2019 and June 2020, the SFP received over 27,000 reports or official complaints of possible acts of corruption or administrative failures, resulting in over 2,260 sanctions against 1,881 officials, including 101 firings, 446 suspensions, and 808 disqualifications from future government employment (SFP 2020, 15). Enhanced audits focused on high-risk areas, external audits with attention to program evaluation, and on-site visits to evaluate controls centered primarily on priority programs (SFP 2020, 14, 17). Via the SIIPP-G, the SFP evaluates and audits the list of citizens enrolled in major social programs (SFP 2020, 18). The SFP also enhanced its auditing of state finances and spending, demanding justification from the states related to irregularities while also fining providers, contractors, and over three thousand public officials (Pérez and Pineda 2020). As part of the agency’s new approach, in

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roughly 40 percent of the cases the audits went beyond looking simply into the finances to assess the effectiveness of the program.17 For its part, the Financial Intelligence Unit has become far more active than in the past. After freezing a total of Mex$70.79 million in assets in 2018, the UIF froze Mex$5.024 billion in 2019. In 2019 alone, it froze over twelve thousand accounts and filed 160 criminal charges: a record number, almost double that of the previous year (Ángel 2020a, 2020b).18 The government has also pursued the investigations, extraditions, and prosecutions of high-level officials from the previous administration. An important component of the government’s anticorruption efforts focuses on the investigations and prosecutions of corrupt officials from the Peña Nieto administration. Administrative crimes are handled through the SFP, but major cases work through the attorney general’s office. While nominally autonomous—though run by a López Obrador loyalist (and the office clearly enjoys the backing of the government)—its activities could be considered beyond the scope of the government. Overall, the prosecutorial office has been rather slow in developing and pursuing key cases, though it has many high-profile cases on its radar.19 Though in mid-January 2020 the special prosecutor for corruption reported that 656 corruptionrelated investigations of current and former officials from eleven government agencies, the judiciary, and the state of Veracruz were underway, only five had been sent to trial. The special prosecutor also noted the investigation of 1,355 complaints of possible irregularities within the office of the attorney general (Fiscalía) itself (Ángel 2020c). Though boasting just thirty-three agents and promising to triple the number of investigations in the coming year, this is arguably a weak link in the system and points to one of the challenges of coordination. Even if the SFP, federal auditor, and UIF are successful at identifying corruption and submit their findings to the special prosecutor, the lack of trials, prosecutions, and public punishment does little to curb the perception and reality of widespread impunity. One study, for example, reported no sentences stemming from the 125 criminal cases involving more than Mex$6 trillion from 2008 to 2017 that were filed by the federal auditor with the attorney general’s office (México Evalúa and Escuela de Gobierno y Transformación Pública, Tecnológico de Monterrey 2019). Similarly, despite more than twenty official criminal complaints filed by the federal auditor in the massive Estafa Maestra case from 2014 to

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2018, none have yet to produce a criminal investigation leading to a sentencing. Still, with former governors already serving sentences, cases are pending against the former secretary of development and tourism and the former director of Pemex and, previously, head of the Peña Nieto campaign in 2012, who has agreed to testify against others. In addition, the US government is trying the former head of security under the Calderón government and associates for receiving payments from the Sinaloa cartel. Together, these more high-profile cases reveal the depths of corruption in the government and provide support for the president’s anticorruption efforts. Though to date there have been no corruption scandals focusing on López Obrador and only a handful on members of his administration that might potentially cripple the anticorruption efforts,20 as seen in other cases, many observers nonetheless interpret certain anticorruption policies and comments of the president as signs of the centralization of presidential power and a potential weakening of the anticorruption institutions themselves. In addition to assailing López Obrador’s attacks on autonomous oversight entities and elimination of intermediaries in the implementation of social programs, critics from civil-society organizations note the continued widespread use of nobid contracts,21 the absence of rules of operation of new social programs, and weak mechanisms for evaluating such programs (Arteta et al. 2020; Vega 2019). Critics also point to the continued impunity that haunts the system, with few prosecutions of corrupt officials and even special consideration for those close to the president.

The United States: Donald Trump As described in the previous chapter, during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign he emphasized the issue of corruption and laid out a series of measures to combat it. Trump promised a number of fundamental reforms targeting the primary forms of corruption found in the United States—campaign finance, lobbying, the revolving door—as well as efforts to “drain the swamp” by way of deregulations and curtailing the control of what he saw as an entrenched political and liberal elite. Consistent with these commitments, during his first month in office Trump issued an executive order that required members of the executive office to sign a commitment. They committed not to lobby

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the agency in which they were employed for a period of five years after leaving government employment or the executive branch or noncareer senior executive service appointees for the reminder of the administration, as well as to refrain from engaging in any activity on behalf of a foreign government after leaving employment. Officials also committed to not accept gifts from registered lobbyists or participate in any matter involving their former employer or client for two years following their date of appointment—and for registered lobbyists within two years of appointment—and to not participate in any matter on which they had previously lobbied for two years (“Executive Order: Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees” 2017; see also “Is Trump Draining the Swamp—or Is the Water Rising?” 2018; Meyer 2017). Trump also undertook certain measures designed, in his view, to “drain the swamp”: among them, the elimination of various government regulations, the dismantling of government agencies that undermined the interests of businesses, and the freezing of government positions. Paradoxically, as will be discussed, the administration also deemed certain efforts to block or weaken oversight efforts within the government as part of the president’s anticorruption strategy. Further measures of the Trump administration are contained in the 4th Action Plan under the Open Government Partnership–US (2019) and the President’s Management Agenda: Modernizing Government for the 21st Century (2019). While neither document mentions corruption specifically, both nonetheless commit the government to enhancing the use of technology and data and modernizing government services to “consumers.” Among the commitments under the short (six-page) Open Government Partnership plan is the development of a comprehensive federal data strategy, the promotion of accountability for grants and the adoption of results-oriented accountability standards, a strengthening of public access to federally funded research, the expansion of workforce data standards, the creation of agency-level chief data officers, the use of open data to promote innovation in public health, and efforts to incorporate privacy, civil liberties, and transparency into the intelligence community. The government also committed to expand public participation in the development of future open government action plans. The President’s Management Agenda (PMA), in turn, crafted by the President’s Management Council and the Executive Office of the President in 2019, similarly concentrates on improving public administration with the

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use of data and technology. As Chenok (2019) notes, “The current PMA is premised on a foundational ‘double trio’ of drivers that link IT modernization, data strategy and workforce improvement to better results for the nation, in terms of mission performance, service delivery and fiscal stewardship.” Despite these measures and stated commitments, however, the Trump administration did little in the areas of campaign finance or broader, more substantial changes in the area of lobbying or closing the “revolving door,” as promised during the campaign and his “Contract with America.” Contrary to the 2016 campaign document, Trump did not introduce a constitutional amendment to limit congressional reelection, pass legislation or an executive order requiring the government to eliminate two regulations for every new regulation created, or draft his promised “Clean-up Corruption in Washington Act.” Instead, there is clear evidence that Trump and members of his administration have continued to engage in many of the traditional forms of corruption plaguing the United States. Trump, for example, rewarded donors with desired policy initiatives, including a reversal of an Obama policy on behalf of the private prison industry, the appointment of Dow Chemical’s CEO to a presidential advisory board, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision reversing a prohibition on a pesticide, and the reversal of a prior promise on negotiating the prices of medicines favoring the pharmaceutical industry (Democracy Reform Task Force 2017). He also facilitated rather than halt the revolving door. Despite the ethics reform noted, the administration promptly began to weaken enforcement by permitting exceptions, denouncing certain provisions, taking advantage of loopholes, and even cancelling ethics training of White House officials (Cohen et al, 2017).22 Moreover, Trump appointed a number of corporate executives and former lobbyists to his cabinet— practices he had assailed on the campaign trail. According to an investigation by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations, by midterm the administration had hired one lobbyist for every fourteen appointments, for a total of 281: a number four times higher than during President Barack Obama’s first six years in office (“Update: We Found a ‘Staggering’ 281 Lobbyists Who’ve Worked in the Trump Administration” 2019).23 Many analysts also contend that Trump has gone well beyond the traditional forms of corruption practiced in the United States that he

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had condemned during the campaign, exhibiting conduct suggesting more direct forms of corruption as well as a tendency to undermine and attack oversight institutions established to check executive power. At one level, by refusing to release his tax returns or put his own businesses into a blind trust (though not required by law, a longtime practice among his predecessors), the president arguably profited from domestic and foreign officials seeking to gain political favor by contracting Trump businesses in possible violation of both the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses in the US Constitution (Article I, Sec. 10 and Article II, Sec. 1). Members of the Trump family have also been accused of converting official powers and conferring favors in return for business opportunities and profits. The government also sought to undermine oversight agencies and efforts to hold the administration accountable. This includes an assortment of challenges to horizontal accountability mechanisms within the government and across the branches of government. The administration, for example, dismissed a number of inspector generals— some appointed by Trump himself—who in compliance with their institutional functions sought to report possible irregularities or criticized the president or his administration, only to be replaced with those more loyal to the president (Bardella 2020).24 The president breached the informal separation between politics and the administration of justice by firing the director of the FBI and US attorneys, ordering investigations into the investigation against his campaign,25 and publicly criticizing the sentencing recommendation of former colleagues (see Chait 2020; Simonova 2020).26 Further political interference includes reports of the president removing those disloyal to him or even removing experts who claim climate change is real (DeVega 2020). In support of such presidential control, the head of the Office of Personnel Management even questioned the Pendleton Act of 1883 that created a professional and nonpolitical bureaucracy.27 This was followed by an Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service on October 21, 2020.28 Though its legality is questionable, the initiative would expand the excepted service (government officials not part of the civil-service system, where hiring is based on competitive examination, firing requires just cause, and officials enjoy representation) to include any position that has “a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policyadvocating character.” The stipulation is considered extremely broad, with the potential to shift tens or hundreds of thousands of federal

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civil-service positions covered under the competitive system, thus giving the president the authority to fire people in those positions and replace them with political appointees—thereby enhancing the possibility of corruption (see Stephenson 2020). The Trump administration also sought to undermine or neutralize oversight by the other branches of government. In a manner designed to block oversight from Congress, the administration refused to cooperate with congressional investigations, prohibiting officials from testifying or complying with subpoenas; refused to abide by the law regarding oversight of particular programs; and abused the Federal Vacancies Reform Act by filling a number of high-level positions with acting appointees, thereby bypassing Senate approval.29 Trump also channeled campaign funds and donations to Republicans in Congress and threatened to mobilize internal opposition against those in Congress demanding accountability.30 While many measures of the administration face judicial challenges, even here the government has strenuously argued before the courts that they have no authority to intervene in a dispute between the executive and legislative branches, that Congress has no right to obtain certain documents or testimony from the president or executive-level officials, and that the president has the authority to block an investigation by the Justice Department and use the department to reward allies, punish adversaries, and even pardon himself to ensure impunity (Tillman 2019). In addition to attacking and weakening horizontal accountability measures, the government has potentially weakened fundamental mechanisms of vertical accountability. Trump has repeatedly questioned the integrity of elections and without evidence made claims of wide-scale voter fraud, potentially undermining public confidence in the system. The president has also lashed out repeatedly at the media for fake news, even to the point of calling the media the “enemy of the people,” threatening or filing lawsuits, and publicly attacking the owners of the press. Incorporated as part of Trump’s broadening perspective on corruption, by July 2017 fake news had come to occupy center stage. According to a Trump tweet on July 24, 2017 (@realDonaldTrump 2017), “the problem [corruption] is really worse than anyone would have thought and it starts with Fake News!” Paradoxically, Trump has touted many of the measures that some see as weakening the government’s anticorruption institutions as part of his bid to actually fight corruption. Trump, for example, justified his refusal to allow executive officials to offer testimony in compliance with congressional subpoenas during the impeachment hearing

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on a clear anticorruption logic: “These are not impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win in 2020” (Liptak 2019). Such a narrative, in short, converted efforts by Congress and other agencies to conduct oversight and promote accountability as a form of corruption utilized by Trump’s adversaries to protect their privileges and power and promote particularistic interests at the expense of the public interest. Such ideas are reflected within the discourse by such expressions as “the deep state” and “drain the swamp.”

Venezuela: Nicolás Maduro Throughout Nicolás Maduro’s time in office, both the people of Venezuela and the president have seemingly acknowledged corruption as a major problem. According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 75 percent of respondents deemed corruption generalized throughout the government (Torres and Dugan 2014). Consequently, during his initial year in office, Maduro deemed fighting corruption a major priority— an issue he also focused on at the start of his second term in 2018. In November 2014, Maduro announced the creation of a national anticorruption system, claiming, “There is no socialism possible if corruption exists” (“Maduro crea un megaorganismo para combatir la corrupción” 2014). Four years later, during a televised address outlining a renewed plan to fight corruption, he stated: I believe the biggest enemy we have, damaging the people every day, is the indolence, bureaucratism, corruption of some officials . . . which is spoiling everything. Enough already! [The corrupt] are bandits, thieves who are disguised as rojos, rojitos [allies] and have robbed from the country. The struggle is against indolence, bureaucratism and corruption, caiga quien caiga [regardless of who falls]” (“El plan anticorrupción de Nicolás Maduro en Venezuela” 2018)

Many of the government’s anticorruption initiatives are laid in its 2013 national plan, a 2014 anticorruption law and creation of the national anticorruption system, and a 2018 anticorruption plan. The national Plan de Patria, 2013–2019, originally drafted by former president Hugo Chavez but adopted by Maduro in September 2013, posits as a national objective “the promotion of a new, ethical, moral and spiritual orientation of society.” The task encompasses the promotion of traditional values of the people, including a defense against what it refers to as the “anti-values” of the capitalist model, the promotion of

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“popular power,” a strengthening of state institutions, and an ethic of fighting corruption and “bureaucratism.” The 148-page document, however, specifically mentions corruption only four times. In November 2014 the government issued an anticorruption law, Decree 1.410. The law establishes norms of behavior based on the principles of honesty, transparency, participation, efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and responsibility to ensure proper conduct and the transparent use of public good. It calls for public consultations for proposed budgets; establishes the right of social organizations to participate in the formulation, evaluation, and execution of the budget; empowers the comptroller to handle property disclosures and investigate and oversee all acts involving public funds; prevents the use of funds for hiring and firing to favor a political party; details the process of investigating and sanctioning acts of corruption; and eliminates any statute of limitations for the crimes of corruption (Decreto No. 1.410, Ley Contra la Corrupción—Gaceta de la Republica November 19, 2014 No. 6.155 Extraordinario). As part of the same enabling law in October 2013 that resulted in the anticorruption law, in November 2014 Maduro decreed the creation of the National Anticorruption System (SNA). Institutionally, however, the system was placed under the presidency, with powers roughly equal to the attorney general and the courts. The SNA would be charged with investigating and sanctioning corrupt acts and would be supported by information from base organizations, the government’s financial intelligence center, and the Centro Estrategico de Seguridad y Proteccion de la Patria (CESPPA) (“Maduro crea un megaorganismo para combatir la corrupción” 2014). Maduro issued a new anticorruption plan in December 2018 in preparation for his second term. As with the Macri government in Argentina, the new plan highlighted the continued problem of corruption despite a term in office. Declaring a “renewed fight against corruption” as one of six principal lines of action, the plan promised twenty-three comptrollers, 4,600 auditors, and 2,600 jurists to combat administrative irregularities, along with greater public participation in the anticorruption effort through comunas (territorial-based community organizations) that would meet to compile popular proposals (“Estas son las 3 claves del plan anticorrupción anunciado por el presidente de Venezuela” 2018). In addition to these plans, decrees, and programs, the government hailed its prosecutions of corruption as part of its concerted effort to

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fight corruption. In August 2013, just four months into the new administration, for example, the government touted the arrest of five officials involved in an $84 million fraud, in addition to the arrest of a former governor of the state of Guárico accused of robbery and misuse of funds, and the former president of a state-owned steel firm. It also accused an opposition deputy of money laundering and pushed for the removal of his parliamentary immunity, and accused the director of the Miranda state government office of paying large sums to a party agency difficult to justify based on the official’s salary (“Maduro plantea como prioridad la lucha contra la corrupción en Venezuela” 2013). Beginning in 2016 the government also reported extensive corruption in the massive social program delivering food to neighborhoods, launching a series of investigations. In November 2017 the attorney general announced the arrest of a number of high-level officials of Pdvsa, the state-owned petroleum company, including the former president of Pdvsa, the former minister of energy, and sixty-five managers (“Fiscal general de Venezuela anuncia la detención de expresidentes de Pdvsa” 2017). The 2018 anticorruption plan similarly noted the work of the anticorruption prosecutor, pointing to over 4,000 investigations, 1,129 arrests, and 824 sentences (the corresponding time period is unclear) (“Estas son las 3 claves del plan anticorrupción anunciado por el presidente de Venezuela” 2018). Despite the government’s programs and initiatives, others paint a far different picture. The Venezuelan national chapter of TI, for example, not only points to extensive levels of corruption, institutionalized impunity, opacity, and virtually no oversight in the Maduro government but also identifies government actions undermining key mechanisms of horizontal and vertical accountability (Transparencia Venezuela 2018, 2020). In 2018, for example, TI noted the lack of oversight and the ineffectiveness of the comptroller general’s office during the previous fifteen years, with only 133 audits, 581 inspections, and a mere two fines from 2014 to 2017. Linking extensive corruption to the growing list of state-controlled companies, the firing of qualified people and the hiring of nonqualified individuals based on political loyalty, direct contracting, and centralized political control, the 2020 TI report states that only two of thirty-two ministries since 2015 actually issued reports and that more than seventy cases of corruption and money laundering in Venezuela were under investigation in other countries.31 The organization also highlights hundreds of cases of members of the opposition-led National Assembly being detained,

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harassed, or denied legal immunity; multiple decisions by the supreme court crippling congressional oversight; ten states of exceptions used to block the congressional body; and the closure of various independent media (on the treatment of opponents, see also Fernández 2017; Polga-Hecimovich 2017). Dávila and Gonçalves (2019) similarly stress the weak enforcement of the 2014 anticorruption law, noting in particular how the law does not forbid the participation of officials in commercial activities. Roht-Arriaza and Martinez (2019, 3), pointing to the state capture of the judiciary and prosecutors, the oil industry, mining, food distribution, and foreign exchange markets by Maduro’s party, conclude that “a shadowy alliance of ruling party politicians, high-ranking military officers, organized crime (including but not limited to drug traffickers) and some members of the private sector have looted the Venezuelan economy for their own benefit, using the levers of state power.”

Analysis of Left/Right in Fighting Corruption A comparison of the anticorruption policies and tendencies among the administrations reviewed here shows a range of similarities, differences, and political patterns. Overall, though grounded in a somewhat different ideological narrative, the governments under consideration share many of the same approaches to fighting corruption, and both left and right governments have pursued some rather unorthodox or novel anticorruption measures. Analysis also shows not only a marked tendency for political discourse during a campaign to differ greatly from actual policy but also the dramatic impact corruption scandals have on undermining, weakening, or even reversing the government’s anticorruption agenda. First, both left and right governments seem to embrace many common policy objectives and initiatives. Implementation may differ, but all governments seemed to promote a series of preventive measures designed to expand the scope of transparency, particularly through the use of technology; broaden the use of sworn property and interest declarations of public officials; strengthen oversight mechanisms and audits of public spending, extending these to other branches and levels of government; professionalize the bureaucracy to hire based more on merit; promote ethical conduct by drafting ethics codes and codes of conduct; and enhance the training of administrative personnel. In addition to these preventive measures, both left and

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right governments have focused anticorruption efforts on improvements to the punitive side. Common strategies here include increased resources for and enhanced training of investigators and legal reforms to expand the laws and harshen the penalties against corruption, protect and encourage whistleblowers, and enhance the government’s power to confiscate property associated with corruption. In many cases, such common initiatives—despite the left/right ideological differences of the political leaders—arguably reflect the influence of the global anticorruption regime. Indeed, many of the reforms reflect efforts by countries to comply with international treaties and cooperate with international agencies by embracing internationally sponsored formulas. Despite problems with the Corruption Perception Index, for instance, most governments are attuned to the annual findings, either using the good news politically to illustrate their commitment to fighting corruption or facing hard questions and disapproval when the news is bad. As transparency became a rallying cry of the international anticorruption community in the early 2000s, most governments embraced the language and adopted a series of initiatives. Similarly, treaty commitments to the 1996 OAS, the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) not only ties governments to certain approaches to fight corruption but also creates mechanisms for states to be evaluated periodically for compliance. These assessments focus the spotlight and help put public and international pressures on governments to comply. In the OAS, the internal mechanism results in periodic reports on a country’s compliance, combining the government’s self-assessment with a thorough study conducted by another government incorporating interviews and studies from local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers of the UN Human Rights Council similarly carries out extensive studies of countries, highlighting various recommendations of the international body in conjunction with obligations under declaration of human rights and the convention against corruption. It outlines a particular approach stressing the independence of the judiciary from political interference (Human Rights Council 2020). The OECD also conducts and reports on its periodic assessments of a country’s compliance with measures to block transnational bribery. The Open Government Alliance, a voluntary association that began in 2010, also influences government. When it began, the Open Government Alliance perhaps represented a new approach focusing on transparency and particularly public participation

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in co-governing arrangements. Since then, it has become more mainstream, embraced by both left and right governments. Though governments may differ in terms of the compromises and initiatives to which they commit (compare, for instance, the most recent commitments of the Mexican and US governments), they nonetheless acknowledge and work within the Open Government Alliance framework. Combined, this international regime, working hand-in-hand with local NGOs and anticorruption activists, sets much of the tone, lays out many of the objectives that governments should pursue, and provides the basic contours of programs and initiatives. It puts public and political pressure on government and stands in judgment to assess governments’ efforts at fighting corruption. And governments respond. They embrace the framework and politically seek compliance and the legitimacy that these organizations provide. The influence of the international anticorruption regime in shaping domestic policy seems even greater within the professional (nonpolitical) ranks of existing accountability agencies (many ostensibly autonomous) and generally among anticorruption experts in both the government and civil society. Arguably, these forces and agents—in rhythm with historiographic changes in our experience-led understanding of corruption and the development of new techniques—contribute to both a degree of continuity from one administration to another despite the political shifts at the highest levels, and the lack of glaring left/right differences in the area of anticorruption policy. Still, despite a shared focus, some differences in anticorruption policies do seem to align with the left and the right. Broadly, most governments on the right seem to have concentrated their anticorruption attention on technical administrative reforms, particularly the use of technology to modernize and facilitate bureaucratic services, transparency, deregulation of the state, and a strengthening of the state’s investigative and sanctioning powers. Beyond rhetoric, few devoted substantial attention to political forms of corruption, though Bolsonaro and Trump did restrict certain forms of lobbying, while Peña Nieto in Mexico issued rules relating to exposing and controlling conflicts of interest. Still, most of the reforms by the right rang consistent with existing international recommendations, with a focus on bureaucratic initiatives. The left, by contrast, does not exhibit much of a uniform approach rooted in leftist thinking on corruption/anticorruption. In fact, only López Obrador’s anticorruption efforts seem to amply illustrate the

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left’s approach. Above all, it devotes priority attention to the political side of the equation—as opposed to the bureaucratic, administrative side—and emphasizes corruption within the private sector and its influence over government policy, despite a range of common proposals shared by most governments. In the Mexican case, the leftist anticorruption agenda fed measures to eliminate special presidential powers to extend tax exclusions to businesses, to crack down on businesses owing past taxes, to investigations against ghost companies signing government contracts and companies producing fraudulent invoices as well as eliminating the discretionary slush funds used by members of congress, the strengthening of property declarations, and limiting future lobbying by executive officials. The López Obrador administration also seems to have pushed a much more aggressive proactive transparency agenda and the promotion of greater citizen participation, as suggested by the commitments spelled out in its Plan of Action under the Open Government Partnership. Few others on the left, however, seemed to adopt this more leftist-oriented approach. Neither Fernández de Kirchner, Lula, nor Maduro seemed to have gone beyond the rather standard formula concentrating on bureaucratic reforms, transparency, stronger oversight, and a strengthening of investigations and punishments. Lula’s progressive anticorruption agenda, for instance, focused less attention on the private sector per se and much greater attention on curtailing money laundering. Maduro clearly embraced a leftist anticorruption rhetoric—warning, for example, against the “anti-values” of the capitalist model—but most of his anticorruption measures did not focus on pro-left measures of extending transparency, strengthening oversight of politicians, crippling the influence of the private sector, or broadening the public’s role in fighting corruption. It is possible, of course, that some measures of the past that were not deemed part of an anticorruption approach might today be seen in such terms. After all, the periods of Fernández de Kirchner and Lula both reflect different historical moments than that of López Obrador. The noted media, judicial, and electoral reforms presented by Fernández de Kirchner, for example, might today be couched within an explicitly anticorruption narrative: a more powerful framing than fighting monopolistic practices or strengthening democracy. Such a situation may also reflect the politicized and polarized setting of today, as examined in Chapter 6. Third, beyond left/right similarities and differences, some governments spanning the ideological spectrum adopted rather unorthodox

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anticorruption initiatives. Among the unorthodox anticorruption approaches are austerity measures (López Obrador, Trump), the curbing of the influence of intermediaries and civil society organizations (Bolsonaro, López Obrador), efforts to eliminate the influence of the left in universities (Bolsonaro), and even attempts to weaken the “deep state” (entrenched administrative officials) and oversight agencies (Bolsonaro, López Obrador, Trump). But though such measures seem to span the ideological spectrum, they are seemingly supported by different rationales. While López Obrador’s austerity measures— clearly touted by the president and the Secretary of Public Affairs as a central component of the government´s anticorruption policy—for example, are somewhat akin to Trump’s emphasis on fighting corruption by eliminating government regulations, dismantling the bureaucracy, and freezing government employment, López Obrador tends to associate austerity more with ending the privileges and pay of government officials who created the excessive pay and special privileges through an abuse of power. Trump, by contrast, promotes deregulation because of the pernicious effects government rules have on business as well as his desire to dismantle the “deep state.” Consistent with the pattern described in Chapter 3, López Obrador sees corruption as largely benefiting private-sector interests while Trump interprets government regulations as a form of self-serving corruption (empowering the bureaucracy) that hurts the private sector. In a similar manner, efforts by López Obrador and Maduro on the left and Bolsonaro on the right to bypass intermediary institutions and weaken the role of civil-society organizations to curtail corruption are also rooted in a different logic. Whereas López Obrador touts the intermediaries as facilitating corruption by government officials, Bolsonaro tends to see the intermediaries and civil-society organizations as part of the corrupt political influence of the left. An even further step into unorthodoxy finds governments on both the left and the right casting certain accountability institutions as basically corrupt and thus seeking to weaken oversight in the name of fighting corruption. Bolsonaro and Trump on the right as well as Maduro on the left have taken strides to attack or remove key officials, claiming corrupt motives on the part of those officials. Some of these similarities may reflect the populist nature of these governments. Fourth, beyond the left/right question of policy, the analysis here also highlights some important political dimensions to anticorruption common to both left and right governments. One political observation, though hardly shocking, is how the rhetoric from presidential

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campaigns (as explored here and in the previous chapter) and by governments themselves differ markedly from the development and implementation of actual policy. Increasingly, but particularly following a scandal-prone administration, candidates tend to stress the issue of corruption in order to capture the vote. They attack the previous administration and current opponents and make wild promises to fix the system. Yet, once in power, while the rhetoric may continue, such anticorruption measures tend to be forgotten, ignored, weakened, or standardized to conform to the broad anticorruption paradigm at the international level. While particularly relevant in the area of corruption, this fits a more general pattern. Often politicians make promises and propose policies based on appealing phrases and ideas but enter office without fully developed programs. Policy drafts or outlines of entering governments frequently lack a careful diagnostic analysis of the problem; they fail to specify the nature of the problem, the targeted sector or population, the stages and tools to implement it, the objectives and goals, or the means to assess performance. Many of these more mundane and less dramatic tasks are turned over to specialists within, and sometimes outside, government who hold ideas, practices, and experiences that may differ slightly from the perspective of the president. Turning the development of policy over to professional bureaucrats would tend to push policy more along traditional accepted lines, more consistent with international regimes and more likely to be rooted in existing structures, ensuring a degree of continuity. In addition to the chasm between campaign promises and policy, the analysis here shows how corruption scandals and investigations against the presidents themselves and/or close allies tend to undermine or weaken the government’s commitment to fighting corruption and, in some cases, to backtracking, attacking, and even dismantling anticorruption forces. Here a number of different patterns can be seen. In the case of Peña Nieto on the right, the corruption scandals in 2014 certainly undermined his early anticorruption initiative, though he tried to recapture it somewhat with the 2015 executive-level reforms. Later, however, suffering low approval ratings and a lack of credibility amid continued allegations and scandals, he acquiesced to the civil society–led reforms resulting in the National Anticorruption System (some contend, in exchange for impunity for friends and colleagues, at least during his own administration). Lula on the left, though initially trying to push back against the Mensalao scandal and protect members of his own government and party, did little to undermine

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anticorruption institutions and actually continued to allow their own autonomous development, though his enthusiasm promoting accountability championed during his first term, according to many analysts, faded. By contrast, as seen in the cases of Bolsonaro, Trump, and to some extent Peña Nieto on the right and Fernández de Kirchner and Maduro on the left, governments often responded to scandals and allegations by weakening or obstructing the investigations. They sought to assert greater control over anticorruption agencies and even challenge the authority of key accountability institutions. In these rather extreme cases located on both sides of the ideological spectrum, the governments also sought to paradoxically twist the narrative in such a way to couch such moves as part of their anticorruption efforts, touting those making the charges and seeking to conduct oversight of the government as actually engaging in a form of corruption, thus thwarting the wishes of the people. Finally, in addition to undermining the anticorruption legitimacy of presidents and weakening their anticorruption agenda, the scandals and investigations of sitting governments seem to have the effect of igniting public anger, mobilizing civil society and making corruption a salient campaign issue: a third important political dynamic seen in many of these cases. Paradoxically perhaps, it is under such conditions that some significant reforms are actually achieved. Both the Clean Record Law in Brazil and Mexico’s National Anticorruption System, for example, emerged in the wake of widespread scandal, the abandonment of the administrations’ pursuit of an accountability agenda, and at the initiative of civil-society organizations and a mobilized citizenry. Similarly, the various scandals that hounded the Kirchner governments in Argentina, spanned the long period of leftist rule in Brazil (Mensalaos and Lava Jato), and haunted the Peña Nieto administration in Mexico all propelled corruption as a major campaign issue in the subsequent election, fueling the popularity of candidates promising to prioritize the fight against corruption. Such campaigns easily resonated with the existing publics’ perceptions of widespread corruption, something Trump also took advantage of despite the fact that the Obama administration faced no major scandals. Once again, Chapter 6 extends the analysis of this political dynamic. * * *

As attention turns to an empirical analysis of changes in the levels of corruption and accountability by the left and right, broadening the

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scope to encompass these and other governments in the region during the twenty-first century, it is important to note here how the many reforms by governments, often in conjunction with international actors, and even the emergence of civil society–led reforms, suggest potential gains. Yet the tendency for scandal to weaken the anticorruption efforts of governments even to the point of dismantling mechanisms of accountability suggests the opposite.

Notes

1. For the informal, relatively unstructured interviews, I asked my colleagues whether the anticorruption reforms of the presidential administrations within their country of expertise exhibited any features that they would consider to be ideologically left/right oriented. 2. Among the various scandals rocking the government during Fernández de Kirchner’s time in office was the discovery of over US$790,000 at an airport in August 2007—the “suitcase” scandal—that US officials alleged came from the leftist Venezuelan government to help the Kirchner campaign; the 2012 accusation that the vice president, Amado Boudou, had intervened on behalf of an investment fund in the sale of a private company; allegations in 2013 (“The Route of the k-Money”) that employees of the Kirchners’ businesses had diverted money intended for public infrastructure into tax havens; the 2014 “Hotesur” scandal alleging the firm administering the Kirchner family hotels of tax evasion and money laundering and that government contractors had rented the properties and hotels to launder the bribes related to public works contracts (Fernández 2017); and the January 2015 complaint by a federal prosecutor that Fernández de Kirchner had conspired to cover up Iran’s alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Scandal and investigations continued to shadow Fernández de Kirchner after leaving the presidency and becoming a senator, including the 2016 TV depiction of a longtime Kirchner official and former secretary of public works hurling sacks of money into a convent (Fernández 2017, par. 56; Goñi 2016) and the “corruption notebook” scandal involving the alleged notations by a driver of a public works official on his periodic deliveries of bags of cash from construction companies to government officials over a ten-year period (see Cabot 2018). 3. Prior to the creation of the CGU in 2001 under Cardoso, most monitoring was done by the Federal Audit Court (TCU). It was responsible for auditing the spending of the legislative and executive branches. The problem was that TCU ministers are politically appointed and devoted most of their time to routine tasks (Ferraz and Finan 2008). 4. Interview with Brazilian expert Fernanda de Odilla. 5. Communications with Brazilian expert and former official under Lula, Pedro Abramovay. 6. Fernando Cardoso (1995–2002) was also involved in payments to members of congress to support legislation—in this case, a constitutional change to permit reelection. 7. On the structural foundations of corruption in Brazil, see, for instance, Fogel (2019), Rose-Ackerman and Mattos Pimenta (2020), and the interview with Timothy Powers in Clausen (2012). Simply stated, Brazil combines a presidential system with a political-electoral system that produces multiple parties and hence no majority party in congress. This renders difficult the passage of legislation. In what Powers (cited in Clausen 2012) denotes as “coalitional presidentialism,” presidents are essentially

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forced to leverage the releasing of funds to powerful state-local governments and pay off members of congress to secure congressional support. In the 2001 election, for example, Lula’s PT gained a mere 20 percent of the seats, forcing Lula to forge a twelve-party coalition (Michener and Pereira 2016). As the Mensalao scandal revealed, the executive used bribes from contractors and those “seeking favorable regulatory or licensing outcomes in order to generate the funds to make the illegal payoffs” to essentially bribe members of the coalition parties to maintain their support (Rose-Ackerman and Mattos Pimenta 2020, 8). Fogel (2019) calls corruption “a form of rule” in Brazil made necessary by the country’s constitutional structure, while Powers calls it and the lack of accountability the “negative externalities” of the system (Clausen 2012, 119). Indeed, Lula showed the PT how alliances work and was thus able to win power (Clausen 2012). 8. As reported in 2018, Flavio Bolsonaro, a member of the Brazilian senate, allegedly was part of a kickback scheme involved in hiring ghost workers as staff, had ties to paramilitary gangs in Rio, and made death threats against an LGBT member of congress. Allegedly, some of the funds from the kickback scheme were deposited in the account of Bolsonaro’s wife. Another son, city councilman Carlos Bolsonaro, was also under investigation for a similar type of kickback scheme (Greenwald 2019). 9. Interview with Brazilian corruption expert Fernanda Odilla. 10. In addition to the PND, the government has presented its major anticorruption initiatives in The National Program to Combat Corruption and Impunity and Improve Public Management 2019–2024 (Government of Mexico 2019b), the “Sectoral Program” based on the PND by the Secretary of Public Affairs (Government of Mexico 2020), and the “4th Open Government Partnership Plan 2019–2021” (Open Government Partnership–Mexico 2019). 11. Proactive transparency is described as going beyond the legalistic and bureaucratic requirements to provide information more useful to the public. It strives to incorporate the public in determining the type of information needed and to provide information that stimulates greater public involvement in the making and monitoring of public policy (see Ackerman 2006; “Guía de transparencia proactiva” 2019). 12. The recommendation to make final beneficiaries transparent was approved by the SNA in October 2018 and thus predates the López Obrador government (see Diario Oficial de la Federacion, October 23, 2018). 13. Sandoval-Ballesteros (2007) provides an early assessment of the opacity of the fideicomisos. For an overview of the more recent political fight over the fideicomisos, see Martínez Gómez et al. (2020). During the debate, López Obrador accused opponents of the measure of defending corruption and promised to prove corruption within the fideicomisos in ten days (“AMLO acusa a diputados de oposición de defender a ‘ladrones’ y dice que probará actos de corrupción en fideicomisos” 2020). A few weeks later, it was reported that the government had transferred millions of pesos to the private sector through the fideicomisos tied to Conacyt (the government’s center for science research) (“Hubo transferencias millonarias al sector privado” 2020). Even so, the government was criticized for not including fideicomisos tied to the military and customs (Roldan 2020). 14. The contributors to the Comité de Participación Ciudadana’s webinar highlights the real and potential threats of the López Obrador government to autonomous institutions designed to safeguard fundamental rights and the integrity of elections and access to information. 15. On the whistleblower program in Mexico, see https://www.gob.mx/profedet /es/articulos/ciudadanos-alertadores-internos-y-externos-de-la-corrupcion-223011idiom =es.

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16. See SFP, Informe de Fiscalización 2019, https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads /attachment/file/534117/Informe_de_Fiscalizacio_n_de_la_SFP_2019.pdf; and “Suman 128 denuncias penales ante FGR por presuntos delitos de corrupción” (2020). 17. These internal audits are in addition to the external audits conducted by the federal auditor (independent of the administration, but an appendage of congress), which detected serious irregularities in government spending and extensive tax evasion in 2018. See Ángel (2020d); Villanueva and Méndez (2020). 18. See “La UIF ha promovido 117 denuncias por operaciones ilícitas de $321,265 millones” (2020); “‘Se acabó la fiesta’ (2020). 19. One indication of the slow progress in prosecuting cases is that of the 872 criminal charges filed by the supreme auditor (ASF) over the years, by 2017 only ten had resulted in convictions (Ángel 2017). Acknowledging the lack of progress in prosecuting cases, the ASF appointed in 2018 reportedly adopted a strategy of submitting fewer criminal charges given the seeming inability of the prosecutor’s office to produce results (Ángel 2020d). In a similar manner, even fines imposed by the SFP for administrative faults are often overturned in the courts and are never collected. 20. Corruption allegations and charges against officials from the current government have centered on the federal delegate to the state of Jalisco, the director of the state-owned power company CFE, and the director of the national sports commission. Sanctions were applied to officials in two of the three cases. However, in mid-August 2020, a series of videos surfaced showing the transfer of money to the president’s brother back in 2015 to assist MORENA for the 2018 elections. While the leader of the major opposition party, the PAN, filed an official complaint with the INE of violations of the electoral laws and the head of the government’s UIF insisted on the need to investigate both individuals involved in the transfer, the public fallout and official investigations remain pending. 21. As part of the criticism of the new government on contracting, a study by Quinto Elemento Lab (2020) points to the rise of new companies following the election that receive government contracts, most of which are direct contracts or by invitation. The study found that 171 companies created between November 2018 and December 2019 received government contracts from 92 government agencies, totaling Mex$366 million during the government’s first year in office, and that of the 561 contracts, 71 percent were direct, no-bid contracts, 16 percent were invited bids of three companies, and just 13 percent were open, public bids. It also cites an April 2019 speech where the president justified the use of direct contracting as a measure to “combat corruption.” 22. Trump, for example, eliminated the ethical provision that prohibited lobbyists from working in agencies they had previously lobbied during the previous two years and made it easier for administration officials to qualify for an exemption from pursuing matters that benefit their former employer (Cohen et al. 2017). 23. Examples include a coal industry lobbyist put in charge of protecting air and water; a former pharmaceutical executive directing health policy; a former petroleumsector lobbyist as secretary of the interior; a lobbyist of the military supplier Ratheon appointed to a position in the Pentagon; an executive telecommunications attorney as president of the Federal Communications Commission; an attorney from the financial firm Goldman-Sachs as secretary of the Treasury; an individual with family ties to a transportation cargo company as secretary of transportation; a financial executive as secretary of commerce; and an automotive-sector lobbyist in the Department of Energy, among others (Lardner 2020). According to Robert Weissman (cited in Lardner 2020), president of the CSO Public Citizen: “One of the overarching narratives of the Trump administration is the total handover of the levers of government to corporations, and particularly the empowering of corporate representatives to oversee the very companies they worked for.”

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24. Trump fired the inspector general in the Pentagon, removing him from his position to oversee programs in reaction to the coronavirus emergence, and replaced him with a White House attorney loyal to the president. He also removed the inspector general in the intelligence community for having sent the whistleblower’s report on the Ukraine affair to Congress as required by law. As members of his administration, Trump indicated that he has the right to remove inspector generals (Badash 2020). 25. Despite promoting the investigation of the investigators by the attorney general, the investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that there was no wrongdoing or bias in the investigation (Huggins 2020). 26. Using the attorney general to selectively investigate his adversaries serves as political function regardless of whether charges are ever made or a judicial proceeding occurs. “The waste of time, expense and reputational costs do enough damage” (Chait 2020). 27. According to the director of the Office of Personnel Management, Mike Rigas, the president has the authority to fill positions with political loyalists. Similarly, one account states that the head of the Presidential Personnel Office was working on a program to purge the disloyal from the administration. According to one official, the applications for salary increases and promotions even asked candidates what they had done to promote the president’s agenda (Lambe 2020). 28. The executive order is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential -actions/executive-order-creating-schedule-f-excepted-service/. 29. In a presidential communication attached to the signing of the massive economic emergency spending bill in reaction to the pandemic, Trump did not accept the condition to make a report to Congress on how the money was being spent (Savage and Baker 2020). Instead, he characterized some of the efforts by Congress to conduct fiscal oversight of the administration as “inadmissible forms of enlarging Congress” (“Mr. Trump’s War on Accountability” 2020). 30. On how Trump helped Republican senators raise campaign funds—the same senators who were serving as jurors in the impeachment hearing—see Papenfuss (2019). On how the Republican National Committee channeled funds to candidates and how Trump directed the money to the committee, see Spies et al. (2020). 31. Many Venezuelan officials have been investigated and prosecuted by foreign governments during the Maduro administration. In 2018, for instance, the government of Andorra processed more than two dozen Venezuelan officials, most from Pdvsa, for money laundering and bribery, including the former president of Caracas Electricity (“La lavadora de fondos en España de un exviceministro chavista: un laberinto de 53 millones” 2019). Also in 2018, former officials of the electric company pleaded guilty to violations of the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for soliciting bribes from foreign vendors in exchange for favorable treatment from the state oil company (Raymond 2018). In June 2019 the United States indicted a former government minister and a former official of the state-owned electric company for money laundering of proceeds from bribes to award a contract to a US-based company (“Two Former Venezuelan Officials Charged” 2019). A month later, Maduro’s stepsons and thirteen companies were sanctioned by the United States for bribery and money laundering involving the food distribution program (Kalyanakrishnan et al. 2020).

5 Assessing Policy Outcomes

DESPITE DIFFERENCES IN ACADEMIC AND POLITICAL DIScussions about corruption/anticorruption that align with ideological positions, the previous chapter revealed many similarities in the policies of a select group of left and right governments in the region. This chapter peers a bit further by looking into the outcome of those efforts, asking simply if there is an empirically verifiable difference among left and right governments in terms of their success or failure at fighting corruption. While the chapter strives to see what available data might tell us, unfortunately, gauging corruption—and hence answering this research question—is fraught with challenges, ranging from the normal issues of validity, reliability, and precision to the lack of metrics for some countries and years. This renders tentative the analysis and the conclusions. Still, the empirical exploration offers insights. Empirical analyses of changes in the levels of corruption over time generally pale in comparison to the multitude of cross-national studies examining the causes and consequences of corruption. Among the few that exist, none has addressed the question posed here. Kaufmann et al. (2009, 35; cited in Gephart 2012), for example, find that no Latin American country achieved “significant changes” in the World Bank’s indicator “Control of Corruption” between 1998 and 2008. A broader study based on public opinion–based indicators by Casas-Zamora and Carter (2017) examines measures of participation (victimization) rates, perceptions of corruption, the ranking of corruption as a national 121

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political issue and assessments of the government’s progress in fighting corruption from 2005 to 2015. It shows a slight regional downward trend in terms of participation and a mix of outcomes in terms of perceptions, with some nations (Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay) registering a decrease and others (Mexico and Venezuela) an increase in corruption. The research shows virtually no change in terms of corruption’s ranking as a political issue or negative assessments of the governments’ anticorruption efforts over the period. From a different angle, some analyses of the leftist pink wave in Latin America assess progress (or lack thereof) in the corruption/anticorruption realm. Noting the advances enjoyed by much of the left in terms of alleviating poverty or inequality, for example, Fernández (2017) affirms that the left failed fundamentally to alter corruption. This failure, according to Natanson (2017), eroded their legitimacy and contributed to their eventual loss of power. While informative, such studies neither provide empirical analysis nor seek to compare the performance of the left to the right.1

Methodological Challenges and Design Despite how straightforward the guiding research question may be, addressing it confronts methodological challenges. Unfortunately, existing methods of measuring corruption for use in cross-national studies remain relatively crude at best, and the data spotty. The dramatic emergence of the subfield in the mid-1990s came about in part because of the use of standardized cross-national measures of corruption, popularized in large part by Transparency International (TI); yet substantial debate has swirled around the validity, reliability, and precision of the various approaches. With entire tomes devoted to these methodological challenges and shortcomings,2 suffice it here to merely scratch that surface. Given the secretive, hidden nature of corruption, all measures are proxy measures: simplified, short-hand calculations that cannot possibly incorporate all the nuances of the phenomenon. By necessity then, they tend to privilege certain characteristics—usually the ones that are the easiest to observe—while neglecting others. Generally, two broad categories are used to quantify corruption/ anticorruption. One concentrates on a slew of efforts to estimate the existence or prevalence of corruption, while the other focuses indirectly on corruption by measuring the presence and/or effectiveness of the institutional tools that, theoretically at least, work to repress corruption:

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components of what are referred to as a nation’s integrity system. The current chapter, as explained below, deploys a combination of both. The most commonly used approach to quantify corruption relies on surveys and hence gauges peoples’ perceptions of corruption. These metrics can be differentiated along two main axes: what is being measured, and who is being asked. Most seek to calculate the extent of corruption within a country, a political unit, or, more specifically, among public institutions. Of course, there is a lengthy debate over validity and whether such subjective perceptions accurately gauge corruption. Not only is perception of corruption not the same as corruption itself, but it also remains unclear precisely what forms of corruption dominate perceptions, or even whether perceptions might encompass traits that reach beyond a normal understanding of corruption, such as statements by government officials, opposition politicians, and the press (Johnston 2005, 6), more general feelings about the government (Bailey 2009; Tavits 2008) or even broad stereotypes. After all, as Robert Rotberg (2020, 38) notes, “None is able to control for the manner in which built-in attitudes or prejudices may influence responses.” Beyond providing assessments of the level of corruption, such survey-based measures can also easily provide additional data on the perceived importance of corruption as a national problem, perceived changes in corruption over a specified period of time, expectations of change in coming years, evaluations of the government’s anticorruption efforts, and tolerance or opposition to corrupt acts, among others.3 Coming at it from a slightly different angle, a second approach to measuring the existence of corruption tries to calculate actual participation in corrupt acts, or what Seligson (2002, 2006) refers to as the victimization of corruption. This not only focuses on direct or neardirect experience of paying bribes or being asked to do so, as opposed to general perceptions of the existence of corruption, but also differentiates such direct experience across different institutions, levels of government, and types of public services. Though studies show that perceptions, as noted previously, incorporate participation rates— those participating in corruption tend to perceive higher levels of corruption—the two are weakly related (see Mocan 2004; Morris 2008; Soares 2004). As a result, the perception of corruption is consistently much more prevalent than actual involvement in corrupt acts. The second axis is who is being asked. The more commonly used metrics in cross-national studies rely on polls conducted among experts including business executives, country experts, academics,

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and development officials. Examples include Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the Worldwide Governance Indicator Control of Corruption (CC) of the World Bank,4 and the World Economic Forum’s Executive Survey included within its Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). Other surveys, by contrast, ask citizens. This latter group includes the more extensive Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) and other polls that include corruption-related questions, such as the Latinóbarometro, the Americas Barometer (AB) by Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), and even the World Values Survey. Uniquely, the World Justice Institute’s Rule of Law Index produces measures based on a fifty-fifty weighted combination of an expert survey (QRQ—Qualified Respondents Questionnaire) and public opinion survey (GPP—General Population Poll), though these are not always conducted in the same year.5 The other approach to measuring corruption focuses not on perceptions of corruption per se but rather on the existence and practice of the legal and institutional tools of the integrity system. These metrics tap expert opinion and employ qualitative analyses to quantify everything from the general institutional features of democracy (elections, separation of powers, checks and balances, independent judiciary, fundamental rights), as in the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), to the presence of anticorruption laws and the existence and perceived effectiveness of specific oversight mechanisms. Other examples include the Global Open Data Index by the Open Knowledge Foundation, measuring transparency; the Open Budget Index from the International Budget Partnership, measuring transparency related to the public budget; the Open Government Index from the Open Government Partnership, calculating openness within the parliamentary process; the Global Impunity Index by the Universidad de las Americas–Puebla, gauging the structure, operations, and effectives in security and justice matters; and the Index of Public Integrity by the Center for Public Integrity. Among the broader indices, the Public Integrity Index, based on peer-reviewed expert assessments, looks at a nation’s “anti-corruption architecture” including laws and institutions promoting accountability, effectiveness of these mechanisms, and citizen access to public information (see Camerer and Werve 2005; Mungiu-Pippidi and Dadasov 2016). Unfortunately, many of these measures are relatively recent and cover only a few years, precluding their use in a study focusing on change over time.

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No measure, of course, is perfect. Like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant, one approach is to recognize that they all tend to measure different dimensions and aspects of corruption, from varying perspectives, reflecting different biases. For this reason, the current approach employs a broad mix of measures reflecting the views of experts and the public, general perceptions of corruption as well as perceived changes in corruption, public assessments of the governments’ efforts to fight corruption and participation in low-level corrupt acts, and integrity-related measures of transparency and accountability. Such a broad use of different types of data to assess change is particularly important given the nature of the current study. Because certain measures, such as the commonly employed CPI, have been criticized for being biased by representing certain forms of corruption and even certain concepts of corruption to the neglect of others—part of the orthodox/right approach to corruption—a blind reliance on these could sorely distort the question regarding differences among left and right governments. If experts and business executives tend to share a certain perspective on the nature of corruption (and perhaps even harbor a bias against leftist governments and consider them automatically suspect of corruption), then these views might influence their perceptions of corruption in left- as opposed to right-oriented governments.6 As Treisman (2007, 212) suggests, the CPI may reflect not observations of corruption but inferences by experts on the bases of conventional understandings of the causes of corruption. It is therefore of particular importance here to differentiate expert and public perceptions. Though correlated in cross-national tests (Canache and Allison 2005), the two are not identical and tend to reflect different underlying notions of corruption (Bowler and Donovan 2016; Morris 2018; Pellegata and Memoli 2012, 9; Razafindrakoto and Roubaud 2010; Redlawsk and McCann 2005). The Razafindrakoto and Roubaud (2010) study of public and expert opinion on petty corruption in Africa, for example, finds that experts wildly overestimate the level of participation in corruption. Such differences can also be seen in general perceptions of corruption. Whereas the United States and Uruguay both enjoy rather healthy CPI scores, for example, 63 percent of the Uruguayan public expressed the view that corruption is common in the Americas Barometer 2014 survey. In the United States, again despite the relatively good CPI score, according to the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) of 2013, 69 percent of respondents believed that corruption was a problem, 60 percent claimed that it had

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increased during the prior year, 76 percent classified US parties as corrupt, and 64 percent believed the government was run to the benefit of the few. Indeed, in many ways, US citizens perceive as much if not more corruption in their country than do Mexicans. As such studies indicate, expert opinion tends to reflect the more orthodox understanding of corruption while public opinion rests more on broader, even left-oriented understandings of corruption (Morris 2018). In addition to the basic methodological challenges of measuring corruption, other problems complicate the current undertaking. First, data is sometimes sparse, not available over all the years under study, or, more specifically, not available during the years of a particular left or right government. Whereas the CPI and CC are produced annually, the GCB and data drawing on public opinion are produced much less often because of the mechanics and costs of conducting polls. Second, comparing data across time to draw inferences is tricky, weakened by even subtle changes in methodology that sometimes occur from year to year. Transparency International, for example, specifically warns that its annual CPI data should not be used to measure change over time until beginning in 2012. TI even shifted from a 0 to 10 scale to a 0 to 100 scale to highlight this methodological change. Even though earlier years are examined here, this methodological problem warrants precaution in interpreting the numbers, again making any results largely tentative. Another complication refers to efforts to identify and assign the data to the year the survey was conducted rather than the year of the report. This is problematic in some cases since the surveys may span more than one year. TI’s CPI surveys, for example, normally span two years. This is even more problematic with the World Justice’s Rule of Law survey, as noted earlier, which admirably uses both expert and public opinion data, but these tend to reflect different years. Expert opinion—the easier task—may reflect the previous year while the public opinion survey—again given the costs and complications— may reflect as much as two or even three years prior. Shadowed by and yet undeterred by these caveats and methodological trepidations, acknowledging the tentative nature of its conclusions, this chapter first describes the variables and sources of data. This is followed by within-country analysis, comparing the performance of left and right governments in those countries where such transitions occurred. The chapter then presents a cross-national analysis comparing the records of the left and right in governments of the region. More extensive methodological notes are provided in the appendix.

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Data The independent variable is the ideological classification of governments in America over the 2006–2020 period. Initially, this is mapped as a simple left/right dummy variable, though latter analysis will differentiate radical from moderate leftist governments. Right/left here is considered relative to the national context rather than some objective ideological standard. This means, for instance, that even if in an objective sense the Democrats in the United States are not truly left (not to a leftist, of course, but to the Republicans, perhaps), they are considered the main left party in the country and located to the left of the Republicans. Categorization of the government is based on a review of party documents and secondary resources. Table 5.1 lists the governments, terms, and ideological classification. The following measures are used to explore the dependent variable: corruption. They are grouped into three broad areas: measures of corruption based on expert opinion and a combination of expert and public opinion; measures of corruption based on public opinion; and integrity measures based on expert and, in one case, the combination of expert and public opinion. Corruption: Expert Opinion

• Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is produced annually by Transparency International. A “poll of polls,” it draws on anywhere from six to ten polls of experts, businesspersons, and aid workers. The polls employ different questions, all asking about the level of corruption or extent to which bribery occurs within a country. The scale is, however, counterintuitive (0 more corruption to 100 less corruption). Years: 2006 to 2019. • Control of Corruption (CC) index from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) relies predominantly on expert opinion with a small set of public opinion data baked in. The intuitive scale runs from –2.5 to +2.5. Years: 2006 to 2018. • The Executive Survey of business leaders that contributes to the Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum includes three specific measures related to corruption: (1) the Diversion of Public Funds, (2) Irregular Payments and Bribes, and (3) Favoritism. All three draw on a series of questions related to the existence of that particular form of corruption in the area of business. It reports using a 1 (“very common”) to 7 (“never occurs”) scale.

Table 5.1 Argentina Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile

Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic Ecuador

El Salvador

President

Term

Party

12/2005–12/2007 Justice Party (Peronist) N. Kirchner Fernández de Kirchner 12/2007–12/2015 12/2015–12/2019 Cambiemos Macri 1/2006–11/2019 MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) Morales 1/2003–1/2011 Lula PT (Workers Party) 1/2011–8/2016 Rousseff PT 9/2016–1/2018 Temer PMDB (Democratic Movement) 1/2018– Bolsonaro Social Liberal 2/2006–11/2015 Conservative Harper 12/2015– Trudeau Liberal 3/2006–3/2010 Bachelet Socialist 3/2010–3/2014 Piñera Renovation (RN) 3/3014–3/2018 Bachelet Socialist 3/2018– Piñera Renovation (RN) 8/2002–8/2010 Uribe Colombia First 8/2010–8/2018 Santos Party of National Unity 8/2018– Duque Democratic Center 5/2006–5/2010 Arias PLN (National Liberation) 5/2010–5/2014 Chinchilla PLN 5/2014–5/2018 Solis Citizen Action (PAC) 5/2018– Quesada PAC 1959–2/2008 F. Castro Communist Party 2/2008–4/2018 R. Castro Communist Party 4/2018– Diaz-Canel Communist Party 8/2004–8/2012 Fernández Dominican Liberation 8/2012– Medina Dominican Liberation 2/2007–5/2017 Correa Alianza País 5/2017– Lenin Alianza País 6/2004–6/2009 Saca National Coalition 6/2009–6/2014 Funes FMLN 6/2014–6/2019 Sanchez FMLN

L/R L L R L L L R R R L L R L R R R R L L L L L L L L L L R R L L

Sources

Lafuente et al. (2015); Gené and Vommaro (2017) Do Alto (2011) El País (2016); BBC (2016)

BCN (n.d.); BBC (2017); DW (2017) Santos (n.d.); Ríos Sierra (2018) Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) (n.d.); Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) (n.d.)

Acento (2017)

Buendía and Hernández (2018) Gobierno de El Salvador (n.d.)

continues

128

Country

Presidential Terms and Ideological Alignments

Table 5.1 Country

Guatemala Honduras Mexico

Continued President

Colon Perez Morales Zelaya Lobo Hernandez Calderón Peña Nieto López Obrador

1/2008–1/2012 1/2012–9/2015 1/2016–1/2020 1/2006–6/2009 1/2010–1/2014 1/2014–1/2018 12/2006–12/2012 12/2012–12/2018 12/2018– 1/2007– 9/2004–6/2009 6/2009–6/2014 6/2014–6/2019 8/2003–8/2008 8/2008–8/2013 8/2013–8/2018 8/2018– 8/2006–8/2011 8/2011–8/2016 8/2016–3/2018 3/2018– 2000–1/2009 1/2009–12/2017 1/2017–1/2020 3/2005–3/2010 3/2010–3/2015 3/2015–3/2020 1999–1/2013 4/2013–

Party

Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza Partido Patriota Frente de Convergencia Nacional Liberal Party Partido Nacional de Honduras Partido Nacional de Honduras National Action Institutional Revolutionary National Regeneration Movement (Morena) FSLN Democratic Revolutionary Cambio Democrático Partido Panameñista Colorado Frente Guasú Colorado Colorado APRA Partido Nacionalista Peruanos Por el Kambio Peruanos Por el Kambio Republican Democratic Republican Frente Amplio Frente Amplio Frente Amplio United Socialist United Socialist

L/R L R R L R R R R L L L R R R L R R L L R R R L R L L L L L

Sources

CIDOB (2019); Álvarez and Pocasangre (2017); Rodríguez (2015); Villatoro García (2015) Sastre (2017)

TeleSUR (2018)

Zúñiga Guardia (2019)

EFE (2019); López (2019) LAND (2010); AméricaTV (2016)

Mizrahi (2019) Rodríguez (2019)

Source: Compiled by Ricardo López Martínez and Salvador Erick Gasca Villa, research assistants assigned to the Laboratorio de Documentación y Análisis de la Corrupción y Transparencia at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales (IIS) of UNAM.

129

Ortega Torrijos Martinelli Panama Varela Duarte Paraguay Lugo/Franco Cartes Benitez Garcia Peru Humala Kuczynski Vizcarra United States Bush Obama Trump Vazquez Uruguay Mujica Vazquez Chavez Venezuela Maduro Nicaragua

Term

130

The Corruption Debates

Years: 2006–2007, 2008–2009, 2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2013– 2014, 2016–2017, 2017–2018. The survey year is the first year in a report’s title. • The Absence of Corruption Index is one of the nine aggregate indicators used by the World Justice Institute (WJI) to create its broader Rule of Law Index. It uses responses from both expert and public surveys regarding the use of public office for private gain by officials in the executive, legislative, judicial, and, in some years, the police and military. The intuitive scale is 0 to 1. Years: 2010 (data for 2009), 2011, 2012–2013 (data for 2012), 2014 (data for 2013), 2015 (data for 2014), 2016 (data for 2015), 2017–2018 (data for 2017), 2019 (data for 2017 or 2018 depending on country). Corruption: Public Opinion

• Perception of corruption is taken from the Americas Barometer survey conducted periodically by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt. It records the percentage of respondents considering corruption widespread within the country. Years and country coverage vary. • Decrease in corruption measures the percentage of respondents indicating a decrease in the level of corruption over the preceding twelve months in the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) conducted periodically by Transparency International. Years: 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017 (data from 2016), 2019. • Increase in corruption is based on the same question. It refers to the percentage of respondents indicating an increase in the level of corruption over the preceding twelve months. • Effectiveness of government in fighting corruption, also based on the GCB, refers to the percentage of respondents who in response to the question “How well is government fighting corruption?” opine very effective or effective. • Government is run by big interests. Included in the 2013 and 2019 Global Corruption Barometer, this variable reflects the percentage of respondents who in response to the question of “whether government is run by and for big interests or for the people” indicate the former. • Two measures are used that refer to participation in corruption: the percentage among those using a set of public services who paid a bribe in the prior twelve-month period as reported in TI’s GCB, and a similarly measured victimization rate by the Americas Barometer. Years: 2006–2007, 2008–2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016.

Assessing Policy Outcomes

131

Integrity Measures: Expert Opinion

• The WGI’s Rule of Law Index, like the CC metric, relies predominantly on expert opinion with a small dose of public opinion incorporated in the tally. It measures the extent to which the law is effectively enforced and respected. The intuitive scale runs from –2.5 to +2.5. Years: 2006 to 2018. • Three measures are taken from the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) based on expert opinion: separation of powers, independent judiciary, and prosecution of abuse in office. It employs an intuitive 1 (low) to 10 (high) scale. Years: 2006 to 2020. • The Constraints or Limits on Government Index contained within the World Justice Institute’s (WJR) Rule of Law Index is based on a series of questions to experts about the existence of limits on the power of government by the fundamental law, the legislature, the judiciary, independent auditing and review agencies, non-governmental checks, and whether government officials are sanctioned for misconduct. The intuitive scale is 0 to 1. Years: 2010 (data for 2009), 2011, 2012–2013 (data for 2012), 2014 (data for 2013), 2015 (data for 2014), 2016 (data for 2015), 2017–2018 (data for 2017), 2019 (data for 2017 or 2018 depending on country). • The Open Budget Survey (OBS) by Open Budget Partnership provides a measure of transparency in government. It evaluates whether governments provide public access to budget information and opportunities to participate in the budgetary process, and the capacity and independence of formal oversight–based surveys conducted among researchers from civil-society organizations or academic institutions typically based in the country. It uses a 0 (poor) to 100 (good) scale. Years: 2006 to 2020.

Within-Country Comparisons

Analysis begins with comparisons among left and right governments within countries. This applies only to certain countries, as many have been run by presidents and parties of the same ideological camp throughout the period under study. Hence, it refers only to countries that experienced ideological shifts during the period, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States. Since in many cases the shift is recent, comparative data is sometimes limited. What data does exist, however, indicates the following.

132

The Corruption Debates

Argentina

According to experts, the right, under Macri, performed better than the left under the multi-term administrations of the Kirchners. This can be seen in the CPI, WGI, GCR, BTI, and WJR (combination of experts and public), though there is a slight decline in the OBS as presented in Table 5.2 and Figures 5.1 and 5.2. Public opinion is a bit mixed, though in three of the five categories they too note greater improvement under the right. Despite paying more bribes under the right, the public considered the right more effective at fighting corruption and noted a greater decrease and weaker increase of corruption under the right compared to the left. (Note in the figures that the vertical line does not reflect the precise time of the transition but is instead adjusted so that the data to the left of the line refer to the period under the left. Using Argentina to illustrate, Macri entered office in December 2015. The CPI report from 2016 includes data for 2015, the final year of Fernández de Kirchner. The subsequent 2017 report covered the first full year, 2016, of Macri.) Table 5.2

Argentina

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

Right

31.5 41.3 –0.39 –0.24 2.09 2.4 2.98 3.3 1.9 3.2 0.48 0.52 80.7 20.7 7 14.5 9 72

14 64

16 45

39 70

–0.28 –0.17 5 7.5 6 7 5 7.5 0.47 0.62 55.2 54

Note: In this and all subsequent country tables, left and right are listed in the order that they governed, indicating forward progression over time. Any shift between the two moving in both directions over the period is shown with a double-arrowed symbol (⟷).

133 Figure 5.1

CPI in Argentina, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.2

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Argentina, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

134

The Corruption Debates

Brazil

Though data is limited owing to the relative recent emergence of the right, the experts indicate an increase in corruption and weaker rule of law under the right as seen in both the CPI and WGI, though the World Justice Project’s (WJP) absence of corruption shows a slight decline under the right (Table 5.3 and Figures 5.3 and 5.4). The experts report no changes in the integrity measures. By contrast, the public sees a greater decline and less of an increase in corruption under the right than the left and considers the right more effective at fighting corruption. The payment of bribes is roughly the same under both; still, there is a striking increase under the right in the percentage believing that the government is run by big interests.

Table 5.3

Brazil

Area/Measure

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB)

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

Expert/ Public Left E E E E E E/P P P P

P P

P P

E E E E E/P E

Right

38.2 35 –0.16 –0.28 2.19 3.63 2.77 0.51 0.45 68.6 14.6 11

12 63

29 41

11

15 54

48 75

–0.15 –0.42 9 9 7 7 8 8 0.56 0.56 81

135 Figure 5.3

CPI in Brazil, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.4

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Brazil, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

136

The Corruption Debates

Canada

As shown in Table 5.4 and Figures 5.5 and 5.6, in the first case moving from right to left, the experts suggest higher levels of corruption during the more recent leftist government as depicted in the average CPI and WGI’s Control of Corruption measures, though the WJR’s absence of corruption shows no difference between the two. As Figure 5.5 shows, corruption began climbing during the final years under the right and continued this trend under the left. In contrast, WJR’s limits on government powers shows a slight improvement under the left. Unfortunately, there is no comparable data from the public for the left.

Table 5.4

Canada

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Right Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

84.8 80 1.81 1.79 5.4 6 4.2 0.83 0.83 2.25

9 52

28 54

1.96

1.9

0.79

0.84 71

137 Figure 5.5

CPI in Canada, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.6

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Canada, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

138

The Corruption Debates

Chile

In one of the few cases featuring political transitions moving in both directions, expert opinion suggests the right performed slightly better in fighting corruption as seen in all measures except BTI’s separation of powers and independent judiciary indices that show no change (Table 5.5 and Figures 5.7 and 5.8). As Figure 5.7 shows, CPI scores fell (meaning more corruption) under both Bachelet (left) governments, while WGI’s control of corruption and rule of law indices deteriorated only during her second term. Yet, the CPI graph also shows it was the left that enjoyed two of three periods of gains. The public largely agreed with expert assessments. Measures show the right performed slightly better, as seen in fewer victims/lower participation rates, bigger decrease/less increase in corruption under the right, and the perception that the right was more effective in fighting corruption.

Table 5.5

Chile

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left ⟷ Right

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low) (CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high) (WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never) (GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never) (GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never) (GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high) (WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

69.4 1.26 4.38 5.53 3.7 0.7 65.6 8.42 13 1 80 20

70.3 1.32 4.93 5.77 4.33 74 66.9 5.25 11.5

11 57.5 26 66

1.32 1.43 10 10 9 9 9 9.5 0.73 0.74 57.5 64.3

139 Figure 5.7

CPI in Chile, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.8

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Chile, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

140

The Corruption Debates

Ecuador

During most of the period, Ecuador was under leftist leadership. With the relatively recent emergence of the right, there is limited data to compare, and in fact no comparable data from the public is yet available. Based on the averages, expert opinion shows the right performing better as indicated in the CPI, WGI, BTI, and WJR’s limits on government indices and shown in Table 5.6 and Figures 5.9 and 5.10. Yet WJR’s absence of corruption shows a slightly better performance under the left and a worsening under the right. More noteworthy, perhaps, is the gradual improvement during the many years under the leftist government, moving from a low of 20 on the CPI in 2008 to a high of 35 in 2013 and ending the period with 34. The subsequent right government continued the trend, registering further improvement. Though more volatile, both the control of corruption and rule of law measures also depict a slight gradual improvement over the years under the left, with higher levels achieved at the end of the period compared to the beginning. Table 5.6

Ecuador

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB)

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E E/P P P P P P

P P

E E E E E/P E

Right

27.8 36 –1.05 –0.63 2.41 3.46 2.41 0.45 0.41 74 28.9 28 14 53 51

–0.7 –0.56 4.5 5.5 3.83 5 4 5.5 0.41 0.46 40.25 38

141 Figure 5.9

CPI in Ecuador, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.10

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Ecuador, 2006–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

142

The Corruption Debates

El Salvador

In El Salvador’s transition from right to left governments, experts suggest a better performance under the right as seen in CPI, WGI, GCR, and WJR measures in Table 5.7 and Figures 5.11 and 5.12. The CPI graph in Figure 5.11 shows a worsening in the latter years under the right, followed by initial improvement under the left before deteriorating once again to levels below the lowest point under the right. Still, the left performed better in the integrity measures of the OBS and BTI’s separation of powers metric. By contrast, the public notes a lower perception of corruption and lower victimization rates under the left and sees the left as more effective at fighting corruption. In combination with experts, the WJR also finds the public offering a better assessment of the left.

Table 5.7

El Salvador

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Right Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB)

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E E/P P P P P P

P P

38.3 36.2 –0.67 –0.7 3.7 2.78 3.5 3.03 2.4 0.48 0.45 70.1 65.73 14.15 10.58 19

11

12 54

31 55.5

E –0.32 –0.41 E 6.5 7 E 6 6 E 6 6 E/P 0.504 E 37 44.8

143 Figure 5.11

CPI in El Salvador, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.12

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in El Salvador, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

144

The Corruption Debates

Guatemala

In Guatemala’s move from left to right, experts offer a somewhat mixed view as shown in Table 5.8 and Figures 5.13 and 5.14. They show the left on average performed slightly better as seen in the CPI, WGI, and BTI indices, one of three measures by GCR (diversion of funds), and the WJR’s Absence of Corruption Index. Yet they find the right did better in the other two GCR measures (irregular payments and favoritism) and the two integrity measures: WJR’s limits on government and the OBS. Though data is limited, the public also offers mixed reviews as depicted in Table 5.8. They note a higher perception of corruption under the left, yet a lower victimization rate. Also in combination with experts, the WJR shows improvement under the left.

Table 5.8

Guatemala

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

31 –1.03 2.53 3.7 2.58 0.48 78.2 20.4

Right 28.5 –1.05 2.48 3.78 2.68 0.34 73.8 22 26.5 17 44

37 54

–0.56 –0.73 6 5.17 5.5 4.67 5 4.5 0.43 0.53 48 55.7

145 Figure 5.13

CPI in Guatemala, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.14

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Guatemala, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

146

The Corruption Debates

Honduras

In Honduras’s move from left to right via the 2009 coup, comparative assessments are mixed. Experts note a decrease in the perception of corruption under the right, as shown in the CPI graph in Figure 5.15, though by 2019 the level returns to those recorded under the left. The WGI’s Rule of Law Index, GCR’s favoritism index, BTI’s independent judiciary metric, and the OBS also improved slightly under the right (Table 5.9 and Figure 5.16). However, WGI’s control of corruption, GCR diversion of funds metric, and BTI measures of separation of powers and prosecution of abuse were worse under the right. The limited data from the public also depicts a mixed assessment, showing a higher perception of corruption by the public under the left, yet a higher victimization rate under the right.

Table 5.9

Honduras

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB)

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E E/P P P P P P

P P

E E E E E/P E

Right

25.3 27.8 –0.95 –1.02 2.93 2.55 3.43 2.47 2.53 0.35 78.3 71.8 14.9 23.13 33 18 53.5 46 54

–0.86 –0.77 8 5.5 5 5.17 5 4.5 0.41 12 44

147 Figure 5.15

CPI in Honduras, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.16

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Honduras, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

148

Mexico

The Corruption Debates

Because of the recent emergence of the leftist government in Mexico, there is limited comparative data. As presented in Table 5.10 and Figure 5.17, experts point to an improved performance under the left as seen in the CPI score (a trend that continued in the 2020 CPI) and the OBS. However, they also point to a worsening in all three of BTI’s integrity measures. Reflecting the improvements in the most recent CPI, the public also shows lower payments of bribes, greater decrease/lesser increase in corruption, and a substantially greater assessment of government’s efforts to fight corruption under the left. Not surprising, the CPI shows a decline in perceived corruption during the initial years of the presidential term (transitions occurred in December 2006, 2012, and 2018), rooted perhaps in optimistic anticipation, the hangover from the electoral campaigns, and initial enthusiasm on the part of the administration in fighting corruption, followed by (in the two prior cases) a clear uptick in perceived corruption during the latter years of the term (see Morris 1991).

149 Table 5.10

Mexico

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Right Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

Figure 5.17

CPI in Mexico, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

E E E E E/P E

32.2 29 –0.54 2.71 3.45 2.63 0.34 75.2 31.9 37.3 34 7 66

15 62

21 44

61 62

–0.52 8.14 7 5.29 5 4.43 4 0.51 62.6 82

150

The Corruption Debates

Panama

Like others, Panama reveals mixed expert assessments. As shown in Table 5.11 and Figures 5.18 and 5.19, data point to a slightly better performance by the right, as indicated by average CPI, WGI’s Control of Corruption, and one of BTI’s integrity measures (prosecution of abuse in office), and yet the WGI’s Rule of Law index, BTI’s separation of powers measurement, and the two measures of the GCR for which data are available (diversion of funds and favoritism) all point to the left as performing better. The public offers a more favorable assessment of the left, noting a slightly lower perception of corruption overall and lower victimization/ participation rates, yet still considers the right slightly more effective at fighting corruption.

Table 5.11

Panama

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

Right

32.8 36.6 –0.14 –0.07 3.43 2.95 3.85 2.87 2.67 0.44 72.2 75 10.2 12.7 8.3 28

20

12 54

25 63

–0.25 –0.41 8 6.83 5 5 4 4.83 0.51

151 Figure 5.18

CPI in Panama, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.19

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Panama, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

152

The Corruption Debates

Paraguay

Paraguay represents another case of multiple transitions moving from the right to the left and back. Experts offer a mixed review. They note slightly less perceived corruption in the averages of the CPI and WGI’s Control of Corruption index under the separate right administrations, as shown in Figures 5.20 and 5.21, yet better assessments of the left in WGI’s Rule of Law index, all three GCR measures, and two of the three BTI integrity measures, as seen in Table 5.12 (separation of powers and prosecution of abuse in office). As indicated, the second period of the right under Cartes and Benitez performed better than the earlier period under Duarte. The public also provides mixed assessments, as shown in Table 5.12. They note a higher perception of corruption under the left and a slightly lower increase in corruption, yet see the right as slightly more effective at fighting corruption and a similar level of decrease. Of the two measures of victimization/participation rates, the left shows a lower victimization rate in one measure while the participation rate gauged by GCB remains virtually unchanged. Table 5.12

Paraguay

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Right⟷ Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB)

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E E/P P P P P P

P P

26.8 22.8 –0.77 –0.83 1.92 1.98 2.8 2.83 1.98 2.15

72.9 26.9 24.5

76.8 22.1 25

15

11 68

8 67

8 62

E –94 –0.85 E 7.33 9 E 5 5 E 3.67 4 E/P E

153 Figure 5.20

CPI in Paraguay, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.21

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Paraguay, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

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Peru

Experts indicate limited and mixed differences between the left and right in Peru. The erratic CPI under the left, as indicated in Figure 5.22, on average reveals virtually no change. The WGI’s control of corruption measure also deteriorated under the left, as Figure 5.23 shows, while the rule of law measure, moving in the opposite direction, improved under the left starting in 2009. As Table 5.13 indicates, the left achieved better outcomes on average in the WGI’s rule of law metric and slightly better in all three of the GCP measures of corruption, while the right enjoyed better assessments in the BTI’s separation of powers gauge and the OBS. Two of the three BTI integrity measures (independent judiciary and prosecution of abuse in office) and the WJR measures of absence of corruption (slightly better under the left) and constraints on government power were basically unchanged. The public, however, points to higher levels of participation in corruption, lower decrease/greater increase in corruption, and greater perception that the government is run by big interests during the period governed by the right. Table 5.13

Peru

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

Right

35.9 36 –0.59 –0.51 3 2.5 4 3.4 2.9 2.3 0.4 0.36 78.1 29.1 19.8 29.5 14 46

15 41

7 72

34 54

–0.33 –0.52 6.83 7.5 6 6 6 6 0.61 0.63 66 74.5

155 Figure 5.22

CPI in Peru, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.23

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in Peru, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

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The United States

The United States also experienced multiple ideological shifts over the period, moving from right to left and back to the right. On average, experts note few differences. There is a slightly lower perception of corruption under the left according to the CPI (Figure 5.24), but as the graph indicates, perceived corruption increased initially under the left, improved somewhat, then deteriorated further beginning in 2015. Under the more recent right government of Trump, the CPI improved somewhat and then fell in the latest 2019 CPI to its lowest level of the period (a trend that continued in the 2020 CPI). The WGI scores for control of corruption and rule of law are virtually the same between the two camps, with a slight advantage to the left for control of corruption (Figure 5.25). As Table 5.14 suggests, the right performed slightly better in the GCR measure of diversion of funds, while favoritism is virtually unchanged, and scored a point higher on the OBS integrity metric. There is limited public opinion data—in fact, only one comparable measure—yet it shows the perception of the right being slightly more effective at fighting corruption than the left. Table 5.14

The United States

Area/Measure

Expert/ Public Right ⟷Left

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI) E Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) E Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR) E Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB) P Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB) P Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB) P Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) P

Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI) Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI) Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E E E E E/P E

72.3 73.5 1.59 1.61 5.1 4.68 5.03 3.5 3.48 0.74 0.77 2

21 1.36

10 59

18 64

1.36

0.73 0.75 79 80

157 Figure 5.24

CPI in the United States, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

Figure 5.25

Rule of Law and Control of Corruption in the United States, 2005–2018

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank. Note: Scale is –2.5 to +2.5.

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Summary of Within-Country Comparisons

Table 5.15 offers an overall summary assessment of the withincountry comparisons. It presents a mixed picture at best and, more importantly, no clear tendency: largely a confirmation of the null hypothesis. Generally, the right seemed to have performed better in the area of corruption in four cases versus three on the left, while the left outperformed the right in integrity measures by the same margin. In the five cases with expert assessments for both corruption and integrity, only three favored the same camp and the other two split. Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, the left, often accused of weakening the institutional checks and balances of government, tended to perform slightly better than the right in integrity measures. Public assessments, in turn, split evenly. The public’s assessments aligned and diverged with expert assessments in an equal number of cases (three). Table 5.15 also includes an indicator of the changes in corruption in the year following an ideological transition. As shown, six cases exhibit a decline in corruption during this period, compared to three where corruption increased. This points, perhaps, to the ten-

Table 5.15 Country

Argentina Brazil Canada Chile Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Panama Paraguay Peru United States Totals

Summary of Within-Country Assessments

Experts Experts Public (Corruption) (Integrity) (Corruption) Order R L R R R R mixed mixed L mixed mixed mixed L

5R, 3L

R = mixed = R L L mixed R mixed L mixed L

3R, 4L

R R nd R nd L mixed mixed L L mixed L R

4R, 4L

Transition

LR declined LR increased RL declined LRLR none LR declined RL none LR declined LR none RL declined LR none RLR declined in 1 LR none RLR increased in both

6 declined, 3 increased

Note: Assessments here refers to either a consensus or clear tendency in favor of one over the other (3 of 4, 4 of 5, etc.). If a near-even number of metrics favored both, the factor is shown as mixed; the symbol = by contrast indicates relatively no change. Order refers to the directional shifts in government. Transition refers to abrupt, notable changes (decline or increase) in corruption measures immediately following (within initial year) an ideological transition.

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dency for new governments to fight corruption more effectively during the initial years or for the rhetoric of the election and the new government to heighten the perception and expectations that corruption is being addressed, as noted specifically in the case of Mexico.

Cross-National Analysis The cross-national focus broadens the number of countries examined in the within-county section to include all those ruled by either the left or the right throughout the period. This thus inserts such countries as Colombia under the right and Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela under the left. The most straightforward manner to compare the experiences under left and right governments is a comparison of means. As indicated in Table 5.16, despite the right showing, on average, slightly lower levels of corruption according to experts except in the mixed expert/public Absence of Corruption Index by the WJR, none of the differences achieve the level of statistical significance. On average, public perceptions are similar between the left and right. While higher percentages considered the right slightly more effective at fighting corruption than the left and agreed that corruption increased a bit more under the left, once again none of the differences are statistically significant. The only statistically significant differences relate to three integrity items, with the right outperforming the left in all three: WGI’s Rule of Law Index, the WJR’s Limits on Government powers index, and the OBS. Across Time

Looking more closely at the temporal tendencies, Figure 5.26 plots the trajectory of the CPI for all the countries in the study alongside the tendencies during the years ruled by the left (n = 188 years/left) and the right (n = 106 years/right). The overall levels of corruption, according to average CPI scores for the region, are rather stagnant, climbing slightly from 38.7 in 2006 to 42.71 in 2012 to 40.7 in 2019 (keeping in mind that the 2006–2012 period carries methodological warnings by TI, but that a temporal comparison from 2012 to 2019 does not). This suggests there is really not much of a secular improvement or diminishing of corruption over time regardless of

160 Table 5.16

Left-Right Means

Area/Measure

Corruption Perception of corruption (0 high to 100 low, CPI)

E/P E

Control of corruption (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI)

E

Diversion of public funds (1 common to 7 never, GCR)

E

Irregular payments and bribes (1 common to 7 never, GCR)

E

Favoritism in public decisions (1 common to 7 never, GCR)

E

Perception of corruption (% respondents, AB)

P

Victim of corruption (% respondents, AB)

P

Paying bribe for select services (% respondents/services, GCB)

P

Absence of corruption index (0 low to 1 high, WJR) E/P

Decrease in corruption over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB)

P

Government effective in fighting corruption (% respondents, GCB)

P

Increase over past 12 months (% respondents, GCB) P

Government run by big interests (% respondents, GCB) Integrity

Rule of law (–2.5 low to +2.5 high, WGI)

P

E

LEFT Mean (n) (SD)

RIGHT Mean (n) F score (SD) (sig.)

40.10 188 17.387 –0.118 178 .842 2.98 116 1.10 3.80 73 1.02 2.72 116 .772 0.493 78 .175 73.3 63 6.47 19.1 74 9.13 21.1 41 12.36 10.8 20 6.29 60.7 20 13.45 27.7 42 12.95 57.2 14 12.30

42.15 106 18.901 –0.800 95 .954 3.14 62 1.180 3.89 45 .955 2.88 62 .780 .487 52 .177 73.8 25 4.64 20.1 33 8.83 18.8 30 13.01 12.1 22 4.50 57.1 22 10.08 31.5 34 15.53 61.3 12 7.01

–0.366 178 .897

–0.122 95 .960

.889 .35 .113 .74

.877 .35

.202 .65

1.64 .20

.035 .85

.098 .75

.251 .62

.585 .45

.593 .45

.982 .33

2.15 .15

1.04 .32

4.36 .038** continues

161 Table 5.16

Continued

Area/Measure

Integrity Separation of powers (1 low to 10 high, BTI)

E/P E

Independent judiciary (1 low to 10 high, BTI)

E

Prosecution of abuse in office (1 low to 10 high, BTI)

E

Limits on government powers index (0 low to 1 high, WJR)

Open Budget Survey (0 low to 100 high, OBS)

E/P E

LEFT Mean (n) (SD)

RIGHT Mean (n) (SD)

6.46 97 2.79 5.68 97 2.56 5.65 97 2.20 0.521 79 .186 45.92 60 22.80

6.82 55 1.64 5.67 55 1.28 5.27 55 1.60 0.576 53 .119 58.77 35 13.78

F score (sig.) .740 .39

.000 .98

1.23 .27

3.68 .057*

8.91 .004***

Notes: * > .10; ** > .05; *** > .01; (n) = number of cases; (SD) = standard deviation; E/P = expert/public.

Figure 5.26

CPI, 2006–2019

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

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the ideology of the government in power. Looking at the two ideological camps, as seen in Table 5.16, the right averaged slightly lower levels of corruption (score of 42.15) than the left (40.1). The two trajectories, however, show greater variation than the regional averages. Whereas the right exhibits lower levels of corruption than the left from 2006 to 2014, the level of corruption among the right climbs beginning in 2009 and does not fall again until 2017. The left shows a decrease in corruption beginning in 2011, falling below the average for the right in 2014, and reaching its lowest level in 2017 at 46.4, only to increase again to a level comparable to the right in 2019 (41.2 left and 40.3 right). Notable improvements among the left during the period include Argentina climbing from 29 in 2006 to 36 in 2016, Bolivia moving from the high 20s to the low 30s, Brazil peaking in 2012–2013, Costa Rica steadily advancing from the low 50s to the mid-50s, Ecuador shifting upward from the low 20s to the low 30s by 2012, and Uruguay, one of the top performers in the region, improving from the mid-60s to the low 70s. Venezuela, of course, counters these positive trends on the left, showing a clear increase in the levels of corruption throughout the period. Other countries with time under the left, such as Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and even the United States, remained relatively stable. The right was also more stable, but a notable increase in corruption occurred in Guatemala and Mexico under the right. The decrease in corruption from 2017 to 2019 on the right was driven largely by improvements in Argentina and Ecuador. For years, TI warned against comparing CPI scores across time, but it made the necessary changes to allow this beginning in 2012. Figure 5.26 marks the methodological change. Following the 2018 CPI, TI began tracking statistically significant changes at the 90 percent confidence level. Among the countries of the region, the 2018 CPI report found the changes in Chile (from 72 to 67), Mexico (from 34 to 28), and Nicaragua (39 to 25)—all deteriorations—to be statistically significant. During the period, Chile sported governments from both the left and right, while Mexico was governed by the right and Nicaragua by the left. As noted, the region really shows no substantial improvement in reducing corruption levels across time, regardless of left or right in government. There is no secular tendency independent of the ideological shifts of the government. Exploring this further, Figure 5.27 focuses on the integrity measures; but as with corruption, there

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is no clear tendency toward improvement over time with the exception of budget transparency. This is somewhat surprising since one might expect that institutional changes resulting in improvements in integrity once in place are difficult to weaken or undermine; but that is not supported by the trajectories shown here. Integrity structures are generally considered and evaluated in terms of their autonomy and capacity to check the powers of and hold accountable elected government. However, like corruption, integrity measures focusing on the institutions that theoretically should depress the levels of corruption, exhibit a mix of progress and reversals. This suggests that governments of both the left and the right not only contribute to the creation and strengthening of these integrity institutions but, despite the levels of autonomy vis-à-vis the government, are also seemingly able to weaken or neutralize them. Among the approaches often used to weaken autonomous organs are constitutional reforms, replacing officials and altering terms before the specified time or not replacing those rotating off, the reduction of salaries and other manipulations of the budget, and public criticism and confrontation (Salazar 2020).

Figure 5.27

Integrity Indicators, 2006–2018 (all countries)

Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank.

164 Figure 5.27

Continued

Source: Bertelsmann Transformation Index.

Source: Open Budget Survey.

Source: World Justice Report, World Justice Project.

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Before concluding, a final look at the data explores potential differences in the changes recorded between what many have referred to as the moderate and the radical left in Latin America. Here, following Ellner (2013), Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are classified as moderate left while Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela represent the radical left. Since averages would distort the picture given Uruguay’s strong starting point, analysis focuses instead on changes in the CPI over the years (reflecting expert opinion) and the public’s perception of a decrease in corruption based on the Global Corruption Barometer. Analysis looks only at the years the left was in power in those cases—Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador—where the right eventually gained control. Figure 5.28 presents the trajectories based on the CPI yet reveals no major differences among the two categories of countries. With the exception of Venezuela, all countries registered some gains in fighting corruption over time (increasing CPI scores) and, with the exception of Argentina, reversals. Looking at just the 2012– 2019 period of true comparability, Argentina—its left out of power in December 2015—was the only country enjoying a positive change. Table 5.17, in turn, presents additional details from the CPI along with the percentage of respondents noting a decrease in corruption during the preceding year. Again, there are no marked differences between the moderate and radical left. In 2013, for example, the only year where data is available for all countries, the moderate left countries enjoyed a slightly higher average than the radical left, ranking Figure 5.28

Moderate vs. Radical Left (select countries, CPI 2006–2019)

Source: Transparency International. Note: Scale is 0 high corruption to 100 low corruption.

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Table 5.17

Comparisons of Moderate and Radical Left

Country

Moderate Left Argentinaa Brazilb

Uruguay Radical Left Bolivia

Ecuadorb

Venezuela

Change in CPI (pts. / %) 2006–2012 Since 2012 +7 pts./24%

+1 pt./2%

+7 pts./11%

–1 pt./1%

+4 pts./12%

+4 pts./15%

+9 pts./39% –7 pts./30%

–6 pts./14%

–3 pts./ 9%

Unchanged

–3 pts./16%

CPI Range (years)

29 (2006–2010) to 36 (2016) 33 (2006) to 43 (2012, 2014) 64 (2006) to 74 (2015) 27 (2006, 2009) to 35 (2014) 20 (2008) to 35 (2013) 16 (2009) to 23 (2006)

% Decrease in Corruption (year) 9 (2013)

18 (2013) 6 (2017) 23 (2013) 6 (2017) 16 (2013) 9 (2017) 14 (2017)

16 (2013) 5 (2017) 3 (2019)

Sources: Transparency International and Global Corruption Barometer. Notes: a. to 2016; b. to 2017.

first, second, and sixth, compared to the radical left at third, fourth, and fifth. Again, the multiple years for Venezuela show that even among the population, the perception grew over the years that corruption was increasing substantially.

Conclusion Despite the methodological challenges of measuring corruption and those related to gauging change, this chapter compares the performance of governments on the left and right in fighting corruption. While within-country results vary among the countries experiencing both left and right governments over the period, there is no clear pattern that either the left or the right performs particularly better. Nor is there any clear pattern regarding different perceptions among the experts and the public. Overall, the data seem to suggest some progress by both left and right governments, but more generally a lack of progress in battling corruption by either. Moreover, the data fail to show much of a difference in the anticorruption outcomes of the moderate versus the radical left. Overall, the analysis, despite

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the various methodological issues noted, tends to lend support to the null hypothesis. * * *

Having exhausted the exploration of left/right differences in ideas, policies, and impact set out at the beginning, the spotlight now turns to the alternative power hypothesis. Delving deeper into the political dynamics surrounding corruption and anticorruption highlighted in the previous chapters, attention focuses on how corruption and anticorruption are politically used by both the left and right to contest power and that what comes across perhaps as left/right differences pivots more on an in-power versus out-of-power axis. Such a dynamic, as suggested, arguably complicates efforts to effectively address corruption, contributing to the poor outcomes documented in this chapter.

Notes 1. Though not specifically addressed here, some studies point to changes in the patterns of corruption over the years. Morris (2009) looks at the impact of democratization on corruption in Mexico, noting the increase in corruption related to elections and corruption tied to the growing strength of the drug trafficking movement. In Argentina, Charles Blake highlights how corruption under Macri tended to influence market forms of corruption, with laws and contracts going to narrow groups with less direct bribery involved and some evidence of campaign finance–related favors, including reduction in taxes for agricultural producers, the precipitous increase in what private companies running public utilities are permitted to charge, and a host of tiny and not-so-tiny real estate and procurement deals. By contrast, corruption under the Kirchners focused more on benefiting their inner circle and tended to be illegal transfers. 2. For critical analyses of existing measures and indices of corruption and integrity, see Andersson and Heywood (2009); Doig (2011); Heywood and Rose (2014); Johnston (2005, 2014); Mocan (2004); Morris (2008); Soares (2004); Warren (2004); Weber Abramo (2007). 3. Some studies have sought to compare different forms of corruption that are arguably rooted in different definitions of corruption. Studies by Heidenheimer (1970), Jackson and Smith (1996), McAllister (2000), Atkinson and Bierling (2005), Redlawsk and McCann (2005), and Walton (2015), for instance, identify differences along a scale of the perceived seriousness or “corruptness” of different corrupt or unethical acts, while Kaufmann and Vicente (2011) and Dincer and Johnston (2014) differentiate and examine legal versus illegal corruption. 4. While the CC measure incorporates data from public-opinion polls, the overwhelming amount of data comes from polls based on executive and expert views, and these enjoy much more weight in the overall calculation. 5. Public-opinion polls face some of the same problems as the CPI (Andersson and Heywood 2009). The public’s views on corruption are certainly influenced by the

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more orthodox, hegemonic narrative on corruption. Still, public views differ rather significantly from expert views (Morris 2008, 2018; Razafindrakoto and Roubaud 2010). 6. As alluded to in Chapter 2, for many, the views embedded in the CPI represent the hegemonic narrative of the international financial community, international business, and Western political leaders expressing an ideological bias that privileges the forms of corruption often found in developing countries while downplaying the types of corruption found in more developed countries. The widely employed CPI tends to load heavily on individual forms of corruption rather than systemic corruption and, specifically, bribery to the neglect of other forms of corruption that do not involve financial transactions or impact the private sector (Andersson and Heywood 2009, 749; De Maria 2008; Johnston 1989; Soreide 2006). Fredrik Galtung (2005, 11) perhaps best captures this commonly held notion by claiming that the CPI would more accurately be called a “bribe takers perception index” or an “extortion perceptions index.”

6 The Power Factor: An Alternative Hypothesis

THE OPENING MOTIF OF THIS BOOK MELODICALLY CONtends that everyone opposes corruption and shares a basic understanding of what it is and how to fight it. The dissonant counterpoint, however, suggests that corruption is instead a divisive political issue that fuels rivalries, accusations, vitriol, conspiracy theories, and even real and/or perceived threats to democracy. Exploring ideological left/right differences in the area of corruption and anticorruption, the ensuing chapters, however, offer mixed results. While rather clear differences characterize academic writings and political rhetoric, fewer differences can be seen in the policy arena, and virtually none in terms of outcome in battling corruption. Building on the counterpoint, the current chapter develops and explores an alternative perspective: the power factor hypothesis. It posits that corruption/anticorruption is constructed and viewed primarily through a political-ideological lens and filtered by way of the dominant partisan construction of politics, giving it a strong appearance of left/right ideological division. But what appear as left/right differences relate less to ideological-based disagreements and more to an in-power versus out-of-power dynamic. In short, corruption/anticorruption has become politicized and weaponized by both camps (in-power versus out-of-power, regardless of ideology) to attack the other, contest, gain, or maintain political power or wealth while merely giving the impression of being ideologically driven. 169

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The chapter opens by laying out the thesis, key definitions, and underlying principles or assumptions. Drawing on the experiences of countries throughout the region, analysis then examines the politicization of corruption/anticorruption as an electoral issue; both the real and perceived political use (weaponization) of anticorruption by government to attack its opponents, buy legitimacy, and/or consolidate power; the political reactions of governments to charges of corruption against their own; and how such reactions are interpreted and weaponized by those out of power. Two shorter sections then briefly elaborate, first, on a set of dilemmas created by and contributing to the situation that seem to complicate our understanding of corruption/ anticorruption and, second, on certain factors that seem to condition the degree of politicization/polarization. The chapter concludes by discussing the impact of politicization/polarization of corruption/ anticorruption not only in terms of the central thesis of this study (the existence of ideological differences in corruption/anticorruption) but on its impact on corruption, efforts to control it, and beyond.

Definitions and Underlying Principles Even if there is a consensus on the problem of corruption and what needs to be done about it, the issue does not exist in a political vacuum. Divisions rooted in competing views of democracy and the role of the state embedded and reflected within partisan divisions naturally arising from democratic competition align to create a hegemonic ideological, left/right political narrative that fundamentally constructs and filters our understanding of politics, including corruption/anticorruption. So while views and even policies on corruption/anticorruption may differ somewhat along a left/right axis, corruption/anticorruption differences pivot more on an in-power versus out-of-power axis. The dominant left/right framework, in short, merely casts corruption/ anticorruption as rooted in left/right differences. Stated a bit differently, contrary to efforts by some perhaps to cast corruption as a nonpolitical issue either through, say, a criminal justice or administrative science focus, corruption/anticorruption has become politicized and is thus portrayed within and contributing to deeply polarized ideological and partisan divisions. Politicization refers to giving an activity or an event a political character in terms of political and partisan competition. More specifically, it refers here to the imputed existence of underlying political

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motives behind corruption/anticorruption to advance a certain political cause, party, or interest rather than the stated and purported reasons for the action. As opposed to a logic of battling corruption and promoting justice, for instance, anticorruption moves are often used (weaponized) or interpreted as being used to pursue other allied political objectives. As will be described, for the government (inpower), it may be done to gain legitimacy, cripple opponents, or consolidate power, while for opponents (out-of-power) such moves may be interpreted as designed to cover-up or facilitate corruption, or, even worse, to establish centralized or dictatorial powers—part of a narrative to attack in-power incumbents and gain power. Polarization, in turn, refers to the existence of extreme divergence of opinions on a broad range of issues and, as a process, an increase in such opposition over time (DiMaggio et al. 1996; see also Abramowitz 2010; Brown et al. 2011). Though polarization can exist among the elite, the masses, or ethnicities, here it is viewed in terms of political parties and alliances, and in-power/out-of-power factions. Prefacing a subsequent discussion, recent analyses of polarization point to its pernicious effects on democracy (Democracy Facing Global Challenges 2019). The power factor hypothesis is premised on three principles. First, that corruption/anticorruption are essentially political constructs. As described in Chapter 2, corruption is a broad and elastic term with multiple meanings. What constitutes corruption or the fight against it is therefore not only subject to interpretation but also the narrative used to describe it. As noted, corruption, anticorruption, and even scandals could be framed within a criminal justice or an administrative science narrative but instead are usually cast in political terms, with interpretations relying extensively on inferences regarding underlying political motives. Noting the political construction of scandals, Casas-Zamora and Carter (2017, 23), for example, point out how some affairs receive substantial attention and traction while others do not. This, they claim, is due largely to the related interests of those creating the narrative. As suggested here, corruption/anticorruption is filtered through the dominant political lens so that interpretations and inferences often differ among partisans/opponents, insiders/outsiders. Moreover, the highly politicized and partisan interpretations of corruption/anticorruption and scandal are often combined with associated narratives creating allies in the process. The construction of scandal, for example, often involves much more than a focus on corruption or illegalities, as Aaron Ansell’s (2018) study of the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff

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shows. Though charged with minor offenses, the movement to oust Rousseff combined “a peculiar blend of neoliberalism, Evangelical conservatism, sexism, racism and authoritarianism.” In addition to standing up to and fighting corruption, the anticorruption narrative of the movement mobilized a religious-ontological narrative questioning Rousseff’s and, by extension, the left’s morality. A second underlying principle of the power factor thesis derives from the tendency of people to identify with groups (party, supporters, opponents, insiders, outsiders, etc.). Grounded in social identity theory, this sense of belonging and identity leads people to stress (or prioritize) intergroup differences while downplaying intragroup differences (Tajfel 1974). This facilitates binary forms of thinking and the selective interpretation of information. Through a host of mechanisms, people tend to side with and accept the views and interpretations coming from those within the group and reject those coming from outside groups. Political party systems—with groups divided largely along ideological lines—create the idea that everyone belongs to teams and can, under certain conditions, contribute to polarization. The bonds may vary in intensity, but such ties lean toward a form of Manicheanbased, zero-sum thinking such that a win for the out-group is considered a loss to the in-group. This tendency makes it difficult, for instance, as one colleague notes, to recognize that the “good guys” have problems or that the “bad guys” can do good things. And when this tendency is filtered through political lenses, it tends to be seen along ideological lines.1 It can also fashion, as Alberto Fernández (2017) notes in the case of Argentina, a dilemma for participants between “being quiet or serving the enemy.” This same tendency also privileges the interests of the in-group not only over those of outsiders but also over personal interests, making corruption for personal reasons treasonous even against the in-group. According to the adage purportedly attributed to a former minister of the Rousseff government in Brazil: “You can steal for the party, but not for yourself.”2 Third, this framework leads people to ignore, accept, or show greater leniency to corruption by in-group members while emphasizing the corruption of outsiders, particularly if the corruption serves in-group interests, as noted in Chapter 1 (Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Bågenholm and Charron 2016; Pereira and Barros 2014; Bauhr and Charron 2018; Chang and Kerr 2017; López-López et al. 2016; Solaz et al. 2019). 3 “People tend to perceive questionable behaviors exhibited by in-group members (or people who are similar to theme) to be more acceptable than those exhibited by out-

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group members (or people whom they perceive as dissimilar)” (Bazerman and Gino 2012, 93–94). This tolerance often results in voters voting for candidates they know to be corrupt (see Anduiza et al. 2013; Eggers 2014). The corruption of allies is met with a more permissive attitude and is cast in less moralistic terms than the corruption of outsiders, which is quickly and fiercely condemned and characterized as a sign of moral failings. Indeed, according to a strand of social psychological research, how we interpret morality and corruption is, in part, a function of power. As Dacher Keltner (2016, 131) notes, “Power makes us blind to our own moral missteps but outraged at the same missteps taken by others” (see also Costa-Lopes et al. 2013; Keltner 2012; Keltner and Lerner 2010; Kipnis 1972, 1976; Rind and Kipnis 1999; Wang and Murnighan 2014).

Dimensions of the Politicization/Polarization of Corruption/Anticorruption Any starting point in a cyclical process is always arbitrary, of course, but much of the politicization/polarization of corruption/anticorruption surrounds campaigns and elections: the public quest for political power and the state’s authority. As highlighted in Chapter 3, corruption has become a central theme in many campaigns in the Americas in the twenty-first century, particularly among those on the outside seeking to wrestle power from incumbents. With perceptions of corruption widespread even in countries like the United States and Chile despite their low levels of perceived corruption among experts, candidates and parties tap into, drive, and mobilize public discontent to cast corruption as not only a major political issue but also a costly one attributable to the incumbents and their allies. In response, they publicly commit to prioritize the fight to abolish corruption if elected. Scandals and allegations involving the sitting president greatly crystallize the saliency of corruption as a campaign issue, as many of the cases show. In Argentina, for example, as Stefanoni (2019) contends, the weak point of Kirchnerism was corruption—and Macri pounced on the issue during his campaign: “Se robaron todo” [they stole everything] became the simple and effective anti-Kirchner cliché and stimulated a reading that reduced the Kirchner era to corruption, obstructing the idea that it was a complex experience combining contradictory elements.” The campaign characterized the management of public works projects as operating through a corrupt cartel of state contractors

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aligned to the administration operating opaquely. Similarly in Brazil, according to Goodfriend (2019), the right weaponized anticorruption as a means to return to power, portraying systematic corruption as a creation of the PT (Workers Party) and essentially equating anticorruption to being anti-PT.4 The right even blamed the PT’s string of electoral victories over the years on corruption (Fogel 2019). Illustrating this tendency, Fogel (2019, 154) cites how former president Fernando Cardoso, speaking at the Wilson Center in September 2017, claimed that corruption before the PT’s rise to power in 2002 consisted of “either individual acts or a mix of patronage with leniency, not a fundamental mechanism for a government to gain and retain power.”5 Beyond campaign rhetoric, corruption itself is influenced by the timing of elections. Owing to the sheer costs of campaigns and the need to garner support, candidates often use corrupt methods to compete. A growing component of corruption in Mexico centers on elections. This includes the illegal channeling of money from Odebrect bribes in 2012 to the presidential campaign of Peña Nieto (Murillo 2020) and the financing of campaigns at all levels by organized crime (Casar and Ugalde 2018). In Argentina, Figueroa (2020) links corruption to the political cycle, showing increased bribe payments in the lead-up to elections. One acute sign of politicization/polarization is that electoral campaigns seemingly never end. This is particularly true with respect to corruption/anticorruption as both governments and opponents maintain attention to the issue during nonelectoral times. New governments (inpower group), of course, often launch various anticorruption initiatives early on, ranging from legal and institutional reforms to investigations and prosecutions of the corruption of the prior administration. In addition to attacking impunity, helping fulfill a campaign promise, and lending credibility to the government’s anticorruption efforts, when such moves follow a transition from one party to another they tend to have the effect of discrediting and weakening the opposition. When the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) came to power in 2009 in El Salvador, for example, its members exposed the corruption of the prior Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) government (Goodfriend 2019). In Mexico, this has been part of a long historical cycle even under one-party rule in the twentieth century (Morris 1991, 2009). Under Lopez Obrador, at the time of this writing, the list of former officials in jail, on trial, or on the run includes the former secretary of social development; the former head of Pemex, who was

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Peña Nieto’s campaign manager in 2012; the former head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, and a host of former governors of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN), among many others. Testimony also points to the corruption by former presidents and members of congress and the likelihood of proceeding with those investigation. But not all administrations proceed in this manner, of course. It depends on certain underlying conditions. There are few indications, for example, that the Kirchners or Lula pursued this approach. Still, scandals—revelations and allegations, arrest orders, extraditions and arrests—tend to be extremely high-profile, enduring media dramas that officials can easily point to as solid evidence of their goodwill in fighting corruption. Indeed, López Obrador frequently hoists the investigations and cases during his daily press conferences as not only proof of his anticorruption commitment but also evidence of the depths and costs of corruption during the neoliberal period (Rodríguez Garcia 2020). Yet such moves are frequently seen differently by opponents. While the out-of-power groups may acknowledge the importance of addressing impunity and agree that justice should be served, they also often offer a different narrative that tends to cast the investigative and prosecutorial efforts of the government as something other than actually fighting corruption or pursuing justice. Arguments politicizing the actions vary. In some cases, they interpret the persecutions and prosecutions of former officials as merely “show,” casting them as politically driven actions designed merely to enhance the government’s legitimacy or consolidate presidential power, but not to fight corruption. In some cases, innocently enough perhaps, they portray the measures as a poor substitute for a more integrated anticorruption strategy. Mauricio Merino (2020), for example, contends that anticorruption under the López Obrador government in Mexico has been reduced to just the persecution of “the corrupt of the day,” (a “show”) neglecting the need to change the underlying systems that truly fashion corruption. Even more frequently, opponents contend that the government’s prosecutorial efforts are selective and politically biased; that they go after opponents while failing to pursue corruption cases among their own ranks. In Mexico, critics point to the few cases where the alleged wrongdoing of current officials goes without investigation or punishments (Dresser (2020; Rodriguez Garcia 2020). In the case of El Salvador, Goodfriend (2019) notes how while the FMLN exposed the corruption of the ARENA government, the right, including US-funded

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NGOs, allege FMLN corruption and thus go after ARENA’s enemies. In Argentina under the Kirchners, as Manzetti (2014, 184) notes, “Although federal prosecutors have been active in pursuing corruption cases involving members of the opposition, they have been reluctant to launch inquiries affecting government officials. In the few cases in which this happened, inquiries ended with acquittals or were invariably stalled.” Santiso (2008) similarly notes the enthusiasm by Kirchner to investigate corruption during the Menem administration but not against his own administration. All this, of course, plays on the principle noted earlier of viewing corruption differently when committed by allies or opponents, consistent with the popular (procorruption) saying in Mexico and perhaps beyond: “Justice and grace for my friends, the law for my enemies.” As discussed more fully when attention turns to dilemmas, to some extent both are right, of course. Government reforms and anticorruption cases are carefully considered and designed to pursue multiple political objectives. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that at times governments have employed the machinery of government to weaponize anticorruption. They prioritize certain cases over others, design anticorruption reforms to simultaneously promote other political objectives, engage in the practices of “lawfare,”6 and even torture to gain “confessions” for political purposes.7 Pointing to the notion of “selective enforcement,” Brinks et al. (2020, 16) notes how “for decades in Latin America, anticorruption laws tended to snare government rivals or former government officials rather than those currently in office.” In some cases, they have the will but lack the capacity to enforce the law, but even in the “long-run[,] state enforcement capacities are shaped by political choices” (Brinks et al. 2020, 17). The political use of corruption can be seen in Venezuela in particular, where Transparencia Venezuela (2018, 2020) points to hundreds of members of the opposition-led national assembly being detained, harassed, or denied legal immunity; multiple decisions by the supreme court crippling congressional oversight; ten states of exceptions used to block the congressional body; and the closure of various independent media. In some cases, impunity is simply a reflection of the power of the targeted institution, as with the lack of prosecution of the many abuses by the military; but in other cases it is part of a broader political calculation.8 Such politicized calculation is usually put into particularly sharp relief when presidents themselves and their allies face allegations and charges of corruption. In a similar manner, opponents, of course, frame their attacks (and even their supportive comments) on the government to highlight both the

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real or simply imagined underlying political (ulterior) motives, the hypocrisy, the inconsistencies, and the what-about-isms. The use and misuse of anticorruption mechanisms by governments can, of course, move in opposing directions as well, depending on the underlying political objectives or imputed motives. Such are, in a sense, the prerogatives of authority. As noted, anticorruption mechanisms can be (or can be seen as being) weaponized by governments to go after adversaries or ignored, weakened, or dismantled to prevent investigations into their own. Simon and Sweigart (2020), for example, allege the political use of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) in both Mexico and Brazil but for different purposes. In Mexico, they contend, the high-profile UIF targets former officials while neglecting López Obrador allies; yet in in Brazil, with Council for Financial Activities Control (COAF) investigations implicating Bolsonaro’s son, the government and its allies sought to stall the investigations. The supreme court froze virtually all of the COAF’s activities for violating the “right to privacy” while the government fired the head of the COAF and later struggled with congress over who should control the agency. Brazil offers a good example of the real and perceived politicization of anticorruption prosecutions. First, the impeachment of President Rousseff in 2016 for the relatively minor offense of misusing statistical information on the economy pivoted more, according to many observers, on promoting a right-wing agenda, discrediting the PT, and gaining political power than on actually fighting corruption or securing justice. As Ansell (2018) notes, the Fora Dilma demonstrations of 2015 were coordinated largely by social movements that besides proclaiming the fight against corruption also identified secondary objectives associated with the right—with some by libertarian think tanks backed by US interests—and that many of those voting in congress to impeach the president dedicated their vote to “God and family” or, as in the case of then deputy Jair Bolsonaro, the military coup of 1964. But according to Ansell (2018), the anti-Rousseff protestors were less concerned about what Rousseff did than about what she was (lesbian, communist). In what the author (Ansell 2018, 321) denotes as ontological corruption, opponents made the “failings” homologous, thereby equating the PT with the lack of morality, corruption, and communism. As attention turned a few years later to former president Lula, the PT, now on the outside following the impeachment, saw the legal prosecution against the former president as similarly part of a right-wing move designed primarily to prevent Lula from competing in the 2018 presidential election while further discrediting the once-dominant PT.

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Subsequent revelations (leaked recorded conversations) of improper communication (collusion) between the investigative judge and the prosecution provided further support for the opposition’s claims of underlying political motives. The leaks between Judge Sergio Moro and prosecutors “reinforced fears that many investigations have been plagued by political bias and a hypocritical disregard for ethics and the law” (Winter 2019). In striking contrast to the politically fruitful investigations and prosecutions of opponents from the prior administration or even current opponents, things are different when it comes to allegations and cases against the sitting president or allies. Here, the politicization of corruption/anticorruption finds governments often defending those within their own ranks, even to the point of intentionally obstructing or dismantling the investigations or even weakening and undermining anticorruption institutions. In many cases described earlier, corruption scandals involving members of the government, including presidents and close allies, were initially denied and contested by the government. In Brazil, though used politically by the PT in congress initially, once the Mensalao investigations came to focus on the PT, party leadership backed off and aligned with the center.9 In the case of Argentina, as Fernández (2017, par. 68) avers: “Official leadership preferred to defend the accused with sofismas [falsehoods] before eventually recognizing that they were responsible, believing that in this way they prevented the allegations from being ‘functional.’” In contrast, Trump labeled all such allegations against his government as hoaxes perpetuated by elements of the corrupt “deep state.” One major effect of scandals involving the president and allies— and what are cast as machinations of the government to shield its own, even by weakening anticorruption agencies—is that it severely undermines the government’s credibility in fighting corruption, as noted in Chapter 4, resulting in a degree of backtracking. In the face of multiple allegations of corruption against herself and her government, as Fernández (2017, par. 64) notes, “the Argentina of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was a place in which the controls [against corruption] were relaxed to the point of becoming mere formalities.” In Mexico, as noted previously, even though the government tried to introduce some executive reforms in the wake of scandal, the combined Casa Blanca affair, subsequent disappearance of the forty-three students in Ayotzinapa in 2014, and a host of scandals involving PRI governors largely crippled Peña Nieto’s control over the anticorruption agenda.

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In Brazil, even though Lula initially sought to block investigations into members of his own party and administration during the Mensalao case, Franco (2019b) claims he nonetheless allowed the further strengthening of the capacity and autonomy of the Federal Police (FP) and the comptroller office during his term. And yet, Sérgio Praca and Matthew Taylor (2014, 39, 40) contend that “the [Mensalao] scandal led the executive branch [Lula] to decrease its emphasis on accountability reforms; [its] emphasis on accountability that was such a hallmark of Lula’s first term appeared to fall by the wayside.” Allegations against Bolsonaro and his sons clearly weakened the government’s fight against corruption. Observers point to the president’s intervention in the FP, the Federal Revenue Service, and the public prosecutor’s office (Franco 2019a). Claiming “that Brazil’s anti-corruption environment is facing an unprecedented backlash,” for instance, Roberto Simon (2019) points out how “Bolsonaro is . . . trying to curtail the autonomy of the Federal Police and the Federal Customs Agency, pushing for a broad leadership change and overruling decisions by his justice minister, Sergio Moro.” It is also widely believed that the president’s efforts to remove the superintendent of the FP in Rio and later the director of the FP—telling his justice minister that he wanted to be able to get confidential information directly from the director on ongoing investigations—were directly related to the investigations targeting his sons for money laundering and illicit ties to organized crime and militias (Vigna 2020). Bolsonaro has also engaged in aggressive rhetoric and unfounded allegations against civil-society organizations and the press, trying unsuccessfully at one point to gain sweeping powers to monitor civil-society organizations (CSOs) though he was able to bar them from participation in public-policy councils (Franco 2019b). Of course, as Franco (2019a) notes, many such setbacks under Bolsonaro are due not to the president alone but also to congress and the supreme court, wary of corruption investigations striking too close to home. Eventually, in response to the Lava Jato case, a broad alliance fell behind efforts to end the investigation: an alliance Bolsonaro joined to help protect the corruption of family members from investigation. In Guatemala and Honduras, as investigations into wrongdoing came to focus on members of the first family, for example, the presidents orchestrated the withdrawal of the international anti-impunity/ anticorruption commissions. Outsider Jimmy Morales in Guatemala had been elected on the promise of fighting corruption; but in early 2017 when his brother and son were indicted for falsifying receipts to

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defraud the national property registry and later in the year when the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) attempted to launch an investigation into the incumbent National Convergence Front (FCN) party for undisclosed campaign contributions, the government accused the international agency of engaging in personal attacks (Schwartz 2019). Seeking to fragment what at the time was a strong pro-CICIG coalition and mobilize opposition, the government, business, and congressional leaders lobbied to oust the CICIG as well as the US ambassador and CICIG backer Todd Robinson. Efforts to get the United States, by then under Trump’s leadership, to back away from its prior support initially prompted US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to urge the CICIG to go about its job “more quietly” (Phillips 2019). In April 2018, following accusations that it was acting on behalf of Russian president Vladimir Putin to persecute a family of Russian dissidents in Guatemala, congressional Republicans froze US assistance to the commission. Though those claims were unsubstantiated and the suspension of aid was short-lived, the damage to US backing remained. In the end, citing the CICIG’s alleged participation in illegal acts and abuse of authority, Morales terminated the agreement with the UN in January 2019. And even though the decision was initially rejected by the UN and overturned by Guatemala’s supreme court, the commission’s term nonetheless ended in September of the same year and was not renewed (Phillips 2019). Honduras followed a roughly similar score. Though the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), established in 2016, led to multiple prosecutions and strengthened the nation’s capacity to combat corruption and impunity, numerous allegations and investigations into the president’s illegal use of funds embezzled from the social security agency during his election campaign, allegations of links to drug trafficking, the conviction of his brother in New York for conspiring to import cocaine, illicit weapons possession and lying to US authorities, and investigations by the MACCIH of congressional allies all worked to undermine the government’s commitment to fighting corruption. In late 2019 the Honduran congress voted to recommend that the MACCIH be discontinued, “claiming that the mission had exceeded its powers and had violated the constitution. Several congressmen who voted in favor of disbanding, it should be noted, were under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office with assistance from the MACCIH” (Silva Ávalos and Robbins 2020). Accusing the commission of “excesses,” in 2020 the government failed

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to reach an agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS) to extend MACCIH’s mandate. In this case, the Honduran congress played an important role in the backlash against anticorruption efforts and the MACCIH. In February 2018 it passed a reform to the General Budget Law that effectively blocked the attorney general’s office from pursuing corruption-related cases for up to three years while the Superior Accounts Tribunal conducted audits of misspending of public funds. Described by the head of the MACCIH as an “impunity pact,” the measure followed the opening of an investigation into possible embezzlement involving sixty members of congress (Clavel 2018). Incorporated into the 2020 reform to the penal code, the changes also reduce the sentences for corruption—effectively, according to critics, protecting the corrupt (González 2020). In both Guatemala and Honduras, international politics played a critical role, demonstrating how the politicization/polarization of corruption/anticorruption extends beyond a nation’s borders. Initially, Guatemala and Honduras both accepted the CICIG and MACCIH in part because of the pressures applied by the Obama administration and the granting of US economic aid to support the work of the commissions. Such US support was critical to the operation and success of the commissions, despite the domestic problems and controversies. Under the Trump administration, however, this commitment eroded, setting the stage for the attacks and eventual withdrawals of the commissions. More pointedly, in return for the erosion of US support, both the Guatemalan and Honduran governments signed safe third-party agreements on immigration, fulfilling a major foreign policy objective of the Trump administration. Such an accord effectively ended the commission’s mandate, dismantling the fight against corruption and impunity (Silva Ávalos and Robbins 2020; see also Arellano Gault 2017). As noted, such reactions by government to corruption within their own camp put into sharp relief the politicization of anticorruption, opening the government up to sharp criticism. Under such conditions, opponents and outsiders are quick to accuse the government of abandoning its anticorruption program and of weakening rather than strengthening the anticorruption institutions and/or independent agencies whose power rests on the theory of checking corruption and abuses. Such a narrative relates both to the specific scandals rocking the administration and to a range of government actions and reforms portrayed as part of a hidden agenda designed not to fight corruption but rather to centralize power (dictatorial power). The official “El Estado del Estado—Argentina” (Government of Argentina 2015, 31)

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by the incoming Macri government, for example, makes this point clear: “The institutions of the republic, instead of controlling management and preventing acts of corruption, were employed on occasions as an instrument in the political struggle favoring officials and were dismantled when they became a threat to those occupying the government.” Indeed, José Natanson (2017) specifically highlights the politicization of the judiciary in Argentina under the Kirchners as designed above all to block investigations of corruption of those in the government and to hasten the centralization of power in the executive (though Nestor Kirchner’s Decree No. 222/03 limited his own power to designate members of the supreme court): “Executive power lobbying of judges and tribunals and the frequent changes in the composition or increasing the number of members of the supreme court are demonstrations of the will (or desire) to condition the processes and win weight in the judicial decisions.” In like manner, Natanson interprets Macri’s controversial “commission” appointments to fill two vacancies on the supreme court, bypassing senate approval, as an effort on his part to control the judiciary (Natanson 2017). In Mexico, critics attack the government’s anticorruption program, pointing to the continued use of direct, no-bid contracts, the failure to make key appoints to the National Anticorruption System (SNA), the lack of trials and sentencing of corrupt officials and even selective application of anticorruption sanctions, and the tendency to eliminate entities and programs in the name of fighting corruption rather than document the corruption and reform the institutions. According to Agustín Basave (2020, 48), the government “assumes that the only way to end corruption in entities more or less corrupted that are in his way is to eliminate them.” Those that are not part of his preferred policies and programs, such as those tied to the military, are not eliminated for corruption. Many critics accuse López Obrador of using anticorruption to consolidate and centralize power. The opening line in a piece by Luis Rubio (2019), a prominent think-tank intellectual on the right, makes the point explicit: “The excuse is the corruption; the reality is total control.” Such allegations/interpretations go beyond corruption, of course, to describe (or impute) the overall intention and potential outcome. According to Rubio (2020): The evidence demonstrates that the real project is not development, but control: not only is everything focused in this direction, but that they do not even pretend to construct the guiding capacity that

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characterized stabilizing development. But the objective of control comes accompanied with the neutralization not only of the (supposed) checks and balances of presidential power, but also the elimination of all the successful factors that characterized the period of what the president calls “neoliberal.”

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Echoing the narrative, prominent anticorruption academic and activist Mauricio Merino (2020) contends that everything the government does is justified by political reasons or objectives. Just as the opposition may accuse the government of weaponizing anticorruption to target opponents, consolidate power, or gain legitimacy, the government may similarly (and paradoxically) cast allegations against and investigations into its own people by actors and institutions beyond its control as politically motivated, even to the point of characterizing it as a form of corruption. In the United States, the Trump administration has consistently cast the FBI-led investigation into the 2016 campaign’s collusion with Russia as well as the impeachment hearings in Congress over abuse of authority as politically motivated and part of a plot orchestrated by the “deep state” to undermine the president (see Greenwald 2020). At the same time, Trump has sought to block investigations, fire or replace inspector generals, bypass senatorial confirmation of top officials, and mobilize congressional support from his own party by raising funds and threatening to fund opponents in the primary elections. According to Steven Levitsy and Daniel Ziblatt (2018), Trump undermined two critical informal institutions that previously had successfully checked the abuse of power: forbearance (refraining from using authority to the degree permitted by law) and the acceptance of the legitimacy of one´s opponents. A perhaps more extreme example of weakening oversight institutions designed to provide checks and balances and prevent corruption paradoxically in the name of fighting corruption involves President Martín Vizcarra’s closing of the Peruvian congress in September 2019. Though permitted under the nation’s constitution, the move followed a year-long battle over the government’s anticorruption measures. With the president claiming that the Popular Force Party, the opposition majority party led by jailed former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, was using democratic institutions for personal gain (corruption) and blocking its efforts to fight corruption, “opposition representatives cried ‘Dictator.’” According to reports, the “last straw” for the president was when congress appointed a new member to the constitutional tribunal: the likely referee in a legal dispute between the two

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branches of government (see “Peru’s Vizcarra Closes Congress” 2019; McClintock 2020). In typical pot-kettle interaction, of course, critics have charged Vizcarra of “pervasive judicialization” of politics (Sosa Villagarcia 2020). In conjunction with weakening the government’s anticorruption standing, scandals also tend to place corruption/anticorruption high atop the national agenda. Rooted in part in a strengthening of the role of the media and CSOs in investigating and exposing corruption, it also sets the stage for opposition leaders and particularly civil society to mobilize efforts to promote important anticorruption reforms. As a result, either despite the lack of a strong anticorruption drive by the government crippled by scandals or because of it, countries often generate important and significant changes in the anticorruption arena. In the case of Brazil, for instance, despite (or as a result of) the government’s weakening due to the Mensalao scandal, civil society mobilized to gain support and eventual approval of the Clean Record Law—arguably one of the most important anticorruption laws in the nation. Similarly in Mexico, despite (or because of) the scandal-riddled government of Peña Nieto, civil-society organizations working with members of congress put together and passed a massive set of reforms creating the National Anticorruption System. The process helped strengthen autonomous oversight agencies going forward, institutionalized state-society cooperation, and set a path toward institutional changes at the subnational level. The proliferation of civil-society organizations focusing on fighting corruption—many supported by international organizations such as the UN Development Program, aid agencies such as USAID, and businesses—has clearly changed the corruption/anticorruption equation. Nominally, CSOs are nonpartisan, and their activities strive to espouse a state/society narrative with citizens fighting corruption within the state regardless of the party in power. This is also seen as part of the professional narrative embraced by journalists. But just as all parties, political interests, incumbents, and opponents contend that their positions reflect objective reality and not narrow self-interests, so too in civil society: the media,10 businesses, and civil-society organizations. But nonpartisan is not the same as apolitical. Not only do media and civil-society organizations have their own corporate interests, they also embrace a certain understanding of corruption, believe in certain tools to fight it, and harbor certain ideological beliefs that tend to align them with affiliated interests in the broader

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political struggle. Some, of course, may align with the government, supporting the official line; some may even benefit materially from certain government policies that incorporate, empower, and/or subsidize the organizations. But like political parties and in-power and outof-power groups, civil-society organizations tend to employ a narrative that coincides with their interests, thus reflecting and contributing to the politicization/polarization of corruption/anticorruption. In Argentina, for example, the quasimonopolistic media, which strongly supported and represented the opposition during the Kirchner period, weaponized corruption in their reports to hit their leftist opponents in the government while downplaying other forms of corruption among their allies: “Although corruption, which is in essence an exchange, involves the private sector as much as public officials, the media tend to focus on the latter,” thus pushing “judicial powers to pursue them [public officials] with greater energy than businessmen” (Natanson 2017, par. 33). In Brazil, Van Dijk (2017, 200) explains the impeachment of Rousseff by pointing to the “biased coverage and misrepresentation” by the nation’s conservative mainstream media. In Mexico, the civil society–led move to reform the nation’s anticorruption architecture in 2015 and 2016 was pushed in part by business-led organizations like the Movement Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) and the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness (IMCO) (Ackerman 2019). For this reason, many of these groups have become critical of the current administration. In a similar manner, Greenwald (2020) highlights the tendency among journalists in the United States to disregard journalistic standards and even promote conspiracy theories, playing into and feeding the politicization/polarization of corruption/anticorruption. According to Ben Smith (2020) of the New York Times: “We are living in an era of conspiracies and dangerous untruths—many pushed by President Trump, but others hyped by his enemies—that have lured ordinary Americans into passionately believing wild and unfounded theories and fiercely rejecting evidence to the contrary.” In summary, corruption/anticorruption are both constructed and set within a political narrative featuring intense partisan and ideological competition. The prevailing political and ideological narrative incorporates seemingly natural tendencies to view politics in a zero-sum fashion: a “we” versus “them” framing. It sustains the view of the ingroup as righteous and virtuous and the out-group as misguided and corrupt. While all efforts to curb corruption rely on some combination

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of preventive measures (normative, institutional changes, transparency, professional civil service, etc.) and reactive measures (investigation, prosecution, sanctions), cast within such a politicized/polarized setting, the rhetoric and actions focused on corruption are often: (1) used by officials, despite claims to the contrary, to consolidate or centralize power and overcome opposition or institutional obstacles, including anticorruption laws; (2) framed by opponents of the existing government as not truly attacking corruption, but as mere simulation to gain legitimacy, undermine opponents, or disguise corruption; and (3) serve as a key campaign rhetorical device to attack opponents and gain power. Because of the dominant political narrative, corruption/ anticorruption is thus cast as pivoting along ideological lines and pitting ideological opponents rather than simply an in-power versus out-ofpower dynamic. All this despite, amazingly perhaps, a basic agreement on corruption’s pernicious effects and the tools of good governance.

Corruption/Anticorruption Dilemmas The prevailing politicized/polarized narrative forges some rather interesting dilemmas. What I once referred to as an epistemological dilemma (Morris 2011) relates to the difficulties of ascertaining the truth. Just as governments on many occasions faithfully exercise their authority to investigate and prosecute corruption, they also, at other times, do so unfaithfully. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that at times governments do employ the machinery of government to weaponize anticorruption, engage in “lawfare,” and even torture to gain “confessions” for political purposes. But differentiating the two—discerning the truth—is hardly straightforward. Similarly, while opponents may believe and claim that investigations and prosecutions are politically motivated, pointing to what they see as political bias and hypocrisy, such actions are equally difficult to prove and may, instead, actually represent the faithful execution of governmental authority. It is hard to know, in part, because much of the truth relies on discerning underlying motives and the trust one has in the persons or institutions proffering these views or findings. Mexico, for example, is replete with allegations, investigations, and judicial cases that seem, at one point in time, to offer solid, incontrovertible evidence of corruption, despite the routine denials by the accused or accusations by opponents that the charges are politically motivated. And yet, years later, courts, now

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operating under a different political setting, overturn the initial findings, sometimes wholly dismissing the evidence and the charges. Though arguably one of the two sets of actions was likely political— since both cannot be true—it remains difficult to determine which. The charges against Raul Salinas, the brother of former president Carlos Salinas, arrested under the Zedillo presidency (1994–2000) but released and exonerated under the subsequent Fox presidency (2000– 2006), stands as perhaps the most iconic example. Despite detailed evidence of hidden millions in bank accounts in Switzerland and the United States as well as a handful of false passports, even the Swiss in the end were unable to show wrongdoing, eventually releasing the confiscated funds. Of course, how a middle-level bureaucrat could acquire or save hundreds of millions of dollars stashed in numerous international accounts remains a bit of mystery. A second yet somewhat similar dilemma relates to the attack on institutions designed, theoretically at least, to prevent corruption. As noted, opponents often point to such attacks on autonomous institutions as not only undermining anticorruption efforts but also threatening democracy. Though many institutions of government and state-society cogovernance arrangements exist fully or in part to check the abuse of power (horizontal and vertical mechanisms of accountability)—checks and balances—such institutions can, paradoxically, also embody powers that seek to protect embedded privileges and block reforms designed to curb corruption: components of systemic and institutional corruption. After all, even independent professional bureaucrats have particularistic interests that might collide with political interests. In the Peruvian example noted earlier, Vizcarra claimed that congress facilitated corruption and blocked his efforts to fight it, despite its democratic role in promoting accountability. The Honduras congress similarly used legislation to weaken anticorruption measures and institutions. Labeling obstructionism from opponents as a form of corruption (to protect privileges or corrupt opportunities, or putting the interests of the party and party officials above the public interest), governments of both the left and the right may seek to consolidate power in order to implement their proposed anticorruption policies. Whereas from the governments’ perspective the centralization of power may thus help overcome the obstructions and tackle what it casts as corruption, such moves will nonetheless be framed by opponents as undermining the institutional checks and balances

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that help prevent corruption. This polarizing tendency is similar to how investigations and prosecutions for corruption are framed. In the end, each side tries to depict the other as protecting, engaging in, or promoting corruption directly or indirectly by weakening anticorruption institutions. Viewed from either ideological angle, however, anticorruption thus becomes cast, paradoxically, as a form of corruption. This problem, it should be noted, would seem to be particularly relevant for the left, and perhaps even for populists, who are more likely to envision the status quo as privileging certain interests over others through institutional design and hence a form of institutional corruption (Thompson 2018). In other words, whereas the right, consistent with its discourse on democracy, is seemingly more likely to characterize the existing institutional structure of checks and balances and shared powers as critical to fight corruption, these same institutions also tend to protect the embedded interests of property owners and the entrenched capitalist system. Consequently, when the left seeks to overcome these same structures and institutions that the right sees as part of the checks and balances of anticorruption, the right accuses it of hastening the concentration of power, undermining democracy, and promoting rather than curbing corruption. And yet in a somewhat parallel manner, the right, which tends to associate corruption with unchecked state power and seeks, as a result, to limit the power of the state and particularly its role in the economy, is often seen by the left as facilitating corruption by failing to check the abuses of the private sector and by permitting greater private-sector influence over public policies. As such, the left’s desire for more state controls over the economy is inherently suspect, cast by the right as setting the stage for corruption by powerful state officials, while the right’s dismantling of the state is inherently seen by the left as setting the stage for corruption by the private sector and its capture of the state for particularistic purposes. And yet, much of this may be inevitable: a third dilemma. Though corruption normally blends legality with morality—the reason few stand in favor of corruption—the practical side of pursuing reforms and investigating, charging, and trying individuals within the public or private sectors for corruption all tend to involve political choices made by government officials in a setting of scarce resources. Simply put, the government cannot pursue all needed changes or investigate and prosecute everyone simultaneously. The police who stopped you cannot stop all speeders. Coupled with the weak institutional capacity of the justice systems, broad discretionary powers of public

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ministries, and political interference, this inevitably feeds an impression of political bias—whether it consciously exists or not—lending support to the conclusion by opponents that the investigation or even the targeted program is in fact not anticorruption at all but rather pursues deviant political ends. Given the ambiguity surrounding all this and the wide speculations and theoretical possibilities, in the end, truth, which is difficult to discern anyway, matters less than the framing. Those accused of corruption naturally employ this device to basically “turn the accusation around,” alleging “witch hunt” or some form of political prosecution that, based on past experience, could of course be true, while the government, in turn, accuses its opponents of politicizing its noble pursuit of justice, which, based on past experience, could of course be true too. Moreover, since discretion is always involved when facing scarce resources, tradeoffs are always involved. At all levels of government, certain acts of corruption are often “permitted/overlooked/tolerated/ ignored” or measures of oversight are not pursued because the objectives of fighting corruption pale in comparison to other institutional or governmental objectives. As noted at the outset, neither corruption nor anticorruption takes place within a vacuum. There are multiple reasons—the official is a friend, or their support is crucial to win the election or achieve other important objective, or the urgency of a situation often makes it impossible to properly put in place oversight mechanisms—as to why the government facilitates or abides corruption, particularly corruption that renders political gain for the institutions, the administration, the party in power, or the president’s family. But the art of politics means killing the most birds with the fewest stones; and so too with corruption/anticorruption. Normally, holding, consolidating, and maintaining power (instrumental objectives), along with a host of other objectives like alleviating social ills or promoting economic prosperity, tend to take priority over fighting corruption. Brazil provides a case in point. As many analysts point out, corruption in Brazil is rooted in the structural conditions featuring a seriously fragmented and in many cases personalized party system and strong federal system. The executive, in short, faces few alternatives but to deal with and, as repeated scandals show, even bribe members of congress to gain support for higher-priority initiatives. But this basic logic could apply to protecting allies accused of corruption or selective enforcement and punishing opponents: all for political reasons. A similar dynamic relates to evidence showing how voters cast their votes for corrupt politicians even when they are aware of the allegations of

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corruption. They do so not because corruption is unimportant but rather because other issues are more important, thus effectively pushing integrity into the background (see Carson and Mota Prado 2016; Chauchard et al. 2019; Winters and Weitz-Shapiro 2013).

Conditions Beyond the dilemmas, the foregoing analysis also suggests certain conditions that seem to facilitate the politicization/polarization of corruption/anticorruption. Three such conditions merit brief mention here. One relates to the strength and degree of support enjoyed by the government. This encompasses government’s control/support in congress, the courts, independent institutions, and society. As Fernández (2017, par. 68) notes in reference to Argentina, “A politically strong government (absolute majorities in both chambers of Congress), relaxed institutions of the republic and tamed political forces incapable of redirecting the abuses and diversions of power become a perfect combination that sets the stage for the expansion of corruption.” By contrast, Nestor Kirchner came in as a relatively weak president and thus pushed several reform ideas that increased transparency; but once he consolidated support, he backed off some of these measures. Years later, Fernández de Kirchner’s control in Congress also helped her shield herself and others while maintaining avenues of corruption available. In Brazil, where structurally presidents are largely prevented from enjoying majority support in congress, Lula was still far more able to withstand the storm than his successor, who faced a much stronger opposition and lacked popular support. Generally, the stronger the government, the easier it becomes to fend off or block charges and allegations of corruption to simulate or control anticorruption reforms, and the less likely they are to use anticorruption mechanisms politically to go after their opponents. However, Mexico’s López Obrador, who enjoys majority control in congress and widespread popular support, may provide a counterexample. To date at least, he has not backed off his commitment to fighting corruption, though the control does enable him to do so without necessarily relinquishing much control to outside institutions such as the SNA. A second and related factor (and a perennial factor conditioning virtually everything in politics) is the economy. Generally, economic prosperity tends to strengthen the government while dampening attention to or the saliency of corruption and/or the need to

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fight it. By contrast, an economic downturn fuels popular discontent toward the government and real/perceived corruption, setting the stage for the government to launch anticorruption campaigns to distract attention away from the economic problems and to bolster support. Casas-Zamora and Carter (2017), for example, link economic decline to a general increase in the public’s disappointment (expectations and limited economic prospects), presidential approval ratings, and trust in institutions. Facing bad economic times, Macri in Argentina, for example, made corruption a salient issue, attacked kirchnerismo, and pursued corruption cases against former officials; yet Fernández de Kirchner, who enjoyed strong economic times, did not pursue a similar strategy.11 In the case of Brazil, Van Dijk (2017, 200) attributes the impeachment of Rousseff, in addition to the media coverage, to the public’s antigovernment sentiments fueled by falling currency values. A third factor worth noting relates to policy swings from one administration to another, though this conceivably could be considered an effect rather than a cause of polarization. Extreme swings in policy, normally brought about by clear ideological shifts in government and facilitated by centralized executive control, finds newly elected governments making major sweeping structural and institutional changes. Rather than allowing prior reforms to mature or develop or even keeping the good parts of policies, such shifts seem to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. For obvious political reasons, depending on the degree of government control and perceived outside threats, such rapid policy shifts and lack of continuity are also more likely to bring about personnel changes as experts are replaced by loyalists, resulting in the loss of institutional memory. This not only complicates progress and the development of institutional capacity—a much-needed part of fighting corruption—but also can undermine or weaken past anticorruption controls (Bersch 2016). Such actions are political and hence politicized, contributing to the polarized environment and attacks by the opposition. But once in power, they are likely to act in a similar manner, perpetuating the cycle.

Impact of Politicization/Polarization Politicization of corruption/anticorruption, which both reflects and crystallizes the polarization of society along largely ideological lines, carries with it a wide range of consequences. First, as suggested here,

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politicization/polarization tends to contribute to the impression of left/right differences in corruption/anticorruption, but instead aligns more firmly along an in-power/out-of-power axis. At the same time, almost by definition, it prevents at least certain forms of corruption— illegal administrative corruption—from being seen and treated in less partisan or politicized terms as part of a somewhat more depoliticized criminal justice or administrative science narrative. Moreover, within a politicized and polarized setting, decisions regarding corruption and anticorruption tend to concentrate more on elected officials than on professionals within the state. Basically by definition, the more depoliticized anticorruption becomes, the more matters are handled by professional bureaucrats who are more likely to recognize and be guided by international professional ethical standards rather than follow political logic or abide by informal political institutions.12 Second, and perhaps even more dangerously, the politicization/ polarization of corruption/anticorruption seemingly exaggerates or at least exacerbates the sense among many that all institutions, public officials, and even members of society are corrupt (Muir 2016). Such views arguably damage society beyond the issue of corruption. In Peru, for example, anticorruption efforts weakened both the left in 2016–2017 (e.g., President Ollanta Humala and former Lima mayor Susana Villaran) and the right in 2018 (President Pedro Kuczynski and presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori), contributing to the narrative that all institutions and parties are corrupt (Nureña and Helfgott 2019; Sosa Villagarcia 2020). In Brazil, according to one account, “Others worry the seemingly never-ending gusher of scandals is paralyzing economies and causing citizens to lose faith in democracy itself” (Winter 2019). In the case of Argentina, Muir (2016, 134) notes how corruption “had penetrated the social world and consumed it from the inside out,” impacting the people’s perceptions not just of their government but of themselves and fostering the notion of national failure. Third, politicization/polarization not only does not seem to help the fight against corruption but also, arguably, renders the task more difficult. Indeed, Taylor (2018, 65) posits that anticorruption efforts applied selectively and with political motivations tend not to have lasting effects. As noted here, politicization/polarization often feeds confusion, uncertainty, fake news, exaggerated and simplified claims, conspiracy theories, fears of the rise of dictators and the decline of democracy, and perceptions that all institutions and society itself are corrupt—a setting hardly conducive to fighting corruption. In a politicized/ polarized climate, anticorruption efforts by an untrusted government are

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routinely dismissed by opponents and others as being political, while the government, in turn, dismisses the claims of opponents as designed to undermine the government. Such a setting cripples the likelihood of establishing cooperation or enlisting the involvement of citizens in the fight against corruption. With a lack of trust across lines and allegations (often exaggerated and unfounded) of corruption and even immorality poisoning the relationship, it becomes excruciatingly difficult for parties and citizens to work together to address corruption. While the evidence here seems to sustain this conclusion and even helps explain the poor performance of fighting corruption by both left and right governments highlighted in the previous empirical chapter, it nonetheless departs somewhat from a number of studies. In fact, some research suggests that political competition and even polarization actually help produce the conditions needed to curtail corruption. At the macro level, this includes most of the features of democracy (elections, checks and balances, accountability, etc.) (see Enste and Heldman 2017; Pellegata 2013; Rock 2009; Treisman 2007) and the number of veto players (Andrews and Montinola 2004). Even at the local level, Poulsen and Varjao (2019) show how partisan competition bolsters the investigation and exposure of corruption in Brazilian municipalities. And while competition is not the same as polarization, cross-national empirical analysis by Brown et al. (2011) actually finds that higher levels of polarization related to better control of corruption. The authors explain this finding by noting how ideological opponents are more likely to be critical and expose corruption of government when there is little likelihood of forming a future coalition: that “ideologically opposed groups have greater incentives to reveal malfeasance than ideologically similar parties,” that executive parties will refrain from corruption because they recognize the opposition’s incentive to report it, and that legislative gridlock that blocks reforms may strengthen institutions that constrain corruption (Brown et al. 2011, 1517–1518). Even so, Manuel Balán (2011) argues that scandals are linked more to intragovernment and intracoalition competition than competition between parties. Nonetheless, the degree of politicization and polarization of corruption/anticorruption today seems to be qualitatively different, preventing rather than promoting a reduction in corruption. Levitsy and Ziblatt (2018), for example, contend that the politicization/polarization gripping US politics, the decline of traditional gatekeepers, and Trump’s violations of many of the existing informal institutional norms actually threaten US democracy. The 2019 democracy report by

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the University of Gothenburg (Democracy Facing Global Challenges 2019, 5, 19) similarly spotlights the danger of polarization to democracy, claiming that “the division of society into distrustful, antagonistic camps,” combined with a lack of respect for opponents, the increasing use of hate speech, and the decline in factual reasoning and engagement in society, constitute a threat to democracy, cutting “deep into the social fabric of society.” Adam Przeworski’s (2019) analysis of the crisis of democracy similarly highlights the dangers of intense ideological divisions to democracy: “When political parties are highly ideological, when they believe that essential issues or values are at stake, they see their opponents as enemies who must be prevented from coming to office by any means” (p. 21). He later adds: “When deeply ideological parties come to office seeking to remove institutional obstacles in order to solidify their political advantage and gain discretion in making policies, democracy deteriorates, or ‘backslides’” (p. 143). The frequent backsliding of anticorruption measures in the countries of the region noted in Chapter 4 and the overall lack of progress documented in Chapter 5 also seem to confirm such fears.

Conclusion Complementing the analyses of hypotheses related to left/right differences in the ideas, policies, and impact of corruption and anticorruption, the current chapter offers an alternative power hypothesis. It contends that what appear as staunchly left/right differences center more concretely on an in-power versus out-of-power dynamic: the politicization of corruption/anticorruption set within and feeding political polarization. Exploring the politicization/polarization thesis, the chapter highlights the multiple political uses of corruption/anticorruption in the competition pitting in-power and out-of-power groups. In addition to emerging as a major issue in electoral campaigns and a means of attacking incumbents, corruption and anticorruption efforts of governments are often used for political purposes. Though they virtuously contend that such initiatives seek merely to curb corruption, pursue justice, and promote democracy—perhaps true—the actions are politically interpreted by out-of-power opponents as designed to consolidate control, strike opponents, and/or garner popular legitimacy, facilitating the in-power group’s stranglehold on power. Opponents, of course, exhibiting a similar bias favorable to their own interests, in turn use their attacks politically to discredit the government and portray it as

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essentially corrupt while at the same time affirming their own virtuous opposition to corruption and need for “true” anticorruption reforms. Within such a setting, allegations of corruption against presidents or allies that emerge from parts of the government not under the direct control of the government or from independent media exacerbate the level of politicization and polarization. Though often met with official denials and even overt and convert efforts to obstruct investigations and weaken anticorruption institutions, such efforts fuel opposition attacks and accusations. At times, the accusations and cases against government officials are paradoxically portrayed as efforts by the corrupt to protect their privileges and contest power, justifying the attacks on and dismantling of anticorruption institutions. Beyond providing a framework for understanding corruption/ anticorruption, analysis here contends that the politicization of corruption set within and feeding political polarization heightens society’s attention to the issue of corruption, papers a consensus opposing corruption and the nature of good governance, and yet, at the same time, complicates efforts to truly curtail corruption. Such helps explain the seemingly never-ending parade of anticorruption candidates at election time, sweeping promises of change, investigations and prosecutions and multiple anticorruption reforms, and yet limited progress. Caught in a political dilemma, the left (right) seemingly brands the right’s (left’s) response to fighting corruption as facilitating it instead. * * *

Regardless of the consequences of the politicization of corruption/ anticorruption, in the end it is impossible to divorce the concept, the practices, or the anticorruption measures from politics. Corruption and anticorruption are inherently political constructs, reflecting underlying biases and shaped by political interests and ideologies. Incorporating the politicization/polarization thesis into the analysis of the ideological differences of corruption/anticorruption thus reflects more broadly on the nature of this unique phenomena, the difficulties and dilemmas that attend to politically contested constructs, and the ongoing efforts to advance the study of corruption and the political desires to curb it.

Notes

1. Class presentation by Eduardo Bohórquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana, July 14, 2020.

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2. Interview with Brazilian corruption expert Fernanda Odilla, June 10, 2020. 3. In a study of eighteen sub-Saharan African democracies, Chang and Kerr (2017) show that partisan and ethnic insiders are more likely to turn a blind eye to corruption. Solaz et al. (2019) find that in-group loyalty undermines the punishment of corruption and that in-group loyalty based on partisanship weakens tendency to withdrawal support from a corrupt incumbent even when no instrumental benefits are provided. Bågenholm and Charron (2016) take it a bit further. Based on a survey of 85,000 citizens in twenty-four European countries, they find that the relationship between tolerance for corruption (e.g., willingness to continue voting for one’s preferred party despite a corruption scandal) and voter ideology is “U-shaped” because voters on the ideological extremes (far left, far right) have fewer alternatives from which to choose and thus are more inclined to stay with their preferred party despite its involvement with political corruption. In sum, as Pereira and Barros (2014) note, when voters and the candidate share ideological preferences, they are less likely to consider the candidate’s misbehavior corrupt than when they have different ideological preferences. 4. Correspondence with Brazilian corruption expert Matthew Taylor, July 13, 2020. 5. See also Durand (2019); Intercept reports at https://theintercept.com/2019 /06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash/; and Mathew Stevenson´s response at https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2019/06/11/just-how-damning-are-the-lava-jato -leaks-some-preliminary-reflections-on-the-intercepts-bombshell-story/#more-14150. 6. Lawfare is defined as the “use or misuse of law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve military objectives” (Stephens 2011, 327). Though initially referring to international affairs, the concept has been used to refer to domestic politics and the politicized use of the law and the judiciary (see Dunlap 2001; Lewis 2008; Stephens 2011). On the use of lawfare in the case of Brazil, see Fortes (2019). 7. Examples abound of the use of torture in Mexico to gain confessions. Human rights organizations have long identified corruption as a major tool of criminal investigation (see Amnesty International 2015; World Justice Project 2019). In the case of the missing students in Ayotzinapa in 2014, conclusive evidence emerged that the government tortured suspects in order to obtain confessions that corroborated the government’s version of events, also known as “the historical truth” (“U.N. Accuses Mexico of Torture, Cover-up in Case of 43 Missing Students” 2018). This version of events was eventually shown to be fabricated. 8. On the lack of investigations and prosecutions of abuses committed by the military in Mexico, see Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (2020); Suárez-Enríquez (2017). 9. Interview with Fernanda Odilla, June 10, 2020. 10. Whereas the media can be seen as neutral observers that play an important role in exposing corruption, they too have interests. Mexico, for instance, sports a long history of officials making corrupt payments to journalists for favorable coverage. This includes legal forms of subsidies and contracts with the media and certain journalists and intellectuals as well as illegal payments. Indeed, the government controls substantial funds that it targets for the placement of government advertising and official communications (see Ahmed 2017; Lauría and O’Connor 2010; Riva Palacio 1995-96). In a similar manner, the government can pressure and repress the media to prevent certain coverage, including exposing corruption. Stanig (2015), for example, shows how the press located in more repressive states in Mexico devote less coverage to corruption. 11. Communications from a scholar of corruption in Argentina, Charles Blake, September 2, 2019. 12. This does not mean, however, that institutions, even if run professionally, can ever be considered completely nonpolitical. From a Wittgensteinian perspective, no institutions can be neutral; rather, they are constructed in ways that privilege certain interests over others and thus favor certain outcomes over others (Mouffe 2005, 97).

7 The Corruption Dilemmas

THE CURRENT JOURNEY BEGAN WITH A RATHER SIMPLE question: whether there is a left/right dimension to corruption and anticorruption. Exploring the literature, a sample of politicians’ rhetoric, anticorruption policies, and the effectiveness of left and right governments in combatting corruption, the analysis offers a mixed and nuanced answer to that question. Ideas in the literature on the nature of corruption, its meaning, the underlying causes, and envisioned solutions—as well as the narrative of politicians—vary widely, with many of those differences neatly aligning with and/or rooted in left/right ideological perspectives. This means, in a very practical sense, that while people may be employing the same concept or referring to the same problem (corruption), actually they are not; this is a simple indication of the breadth and malleability of the concept, as well as the lack of careful disaggregation of its component parts. As attention progressed to policies, however, fewer differences seemed to separate left and right governments. Certain differences remained, however. The left, in certain cases, tended to focus more attention on private-sector corruption and on how policy privileges private-sector interests, promoting a broader deepening of democracy to fight corruption, while the right concentrated more squarely on institutional reforms and limiting the bureaucracy, targeting in particular corruption within public administration. Still, both shared many of the same policy tools, including various forms of transparency, the disclosure 197

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of public officials’ property holdings, the professionalization and capacity building of auditors and particularly investigators, institutional reforms to strengthen oversight and investigations, the adoption of legal reforms to better define and proscribe corrupt acts, the signing of international treaties and working together with international organizations to bolster anticorruption programs, and a broader role for the public in various cogovernance arrangements to both craft policy and oversee public projects. Many of these efforts echo the recommendations of international organizations, the commitments of government to international agreements, and a professional class of anticorruption or integrity warriors working directly with governments (Sampson 2005, 103). And yet, despite the few differences and many similarities in the policies, the governments’ record of fighting corruption was scarcely affected by the ideological bent of the government. This varies among the countries and cases, but overall, no clear pattern could be discerned. In fact, neither left nor right governments in the region have performed particularly well in battling corruption over the past decade and a half. In short, despite different visions, neither the left nor the right has figured out how to effectively reduce corruption. In the end, there remains then a core or shared focus on certain basic forms of corruption and the central role of institutions and citizen participation in fighting it: a somewhat moderate position that in some ways borrows from the insights of both the right and left. But despite such a common focus and even a near consensus on certain forms of corruption and the institutional nature of good governance, there is no denying that citizens often understand and harbor an intense concern about corruption that departs in significant ways from the views of experts, or that the concerns and reforms championed by the left frequently deviate in important ways from their counterparts on the right. While using similar concepts, subtle differences stem from and reflect different ideologies about the role and nature of the state, society, and democracy, something even more manifest when looking at corruption/anticorruption within a broader political context. As an alternative to the left/right framework, the analysis also highlights the intense politicization of corruption and anticorruption set within and feeding intense polarization: the power factor hypothesis. A political and moral construct, corruption is wielded politically by both those in power and those out of power. Just as governments use both corruption and anticorruption to pursue a range of political objectives, above all to hold on to power, so too do their opponents, but to gain power. From allegations of corruption against officials to a narrative

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suggesting that government anticorruption efforts actually facilitate rather than fight corruption, concentrate power, and hence threaten democracy, the opposition uses corruption and anticorruption to discredit the government, hopefully paving the way to (re)gaining power. Regardless of ideology then, corruption/anticorruption emerges as a device by those in power to maintain power and those out of power to attack incumbents and to mount an effective campaign to gain power. Yet despite an ensuing political transition, in-power and out-of-power groups largely maintain these narratives that are framed and channeled by way of their respective ideologies. Among other effects, this political dynamic seems to give the appearance of or at least exaggerate the ideologically based differences that separate the left and right on the issues of corruption and anticorruption. In addition to these tentative findings, the analysis highlights broader questions and dilemmas about corruption and anticorruption that may help map future lines of inquiry. First, the analysis reiterates the often-made point that corruption is an exceedingly broad concept. It refers to both a particular type of individual behavior and also to a characteristic of systems and institutions; it can be both illegal and legal; it oversteps boundaries variably defined by a range of sometimes-imprecise political ideals from those embedded in the written law to ethical universalism, duplicitous exclusion, or even the more ambiguous notion of the common interest; it arises from motives ranging from personal gain (greed) and the pursuit of political or institutional objectives to simply everyday survival; and it presents itself in different patterns and in different settings. The use of the same term enveloping such diverse phenomena, however, may obscure as much as it elucidates. Such a situation parallels in some sense the use of the concept “illness.” While we all have a basic understanding of its meaning and at some level the concept is useful, few studies or treatments actually focus on “illness.” Instead, recognizing fundamental differences in etiology and underlying processes, researchers and cures concentrate on particular types of illnesses. Unfortunately, disaggregating this umbrella concept of corruption remains rather limited. Due in part to the methodological challenges of measuring corruption—a prerequisite for quantitative analysis— most studies still focus on the causes and consequences of “corruption” broadly conceived (Bauhr 2017, 562). Indeed, the widely used Corruption Perception Index (CPI), while certainly a useful metric (both academically and politically), generally fails to provide much information on the particular patterns or forms of corruption within a

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country, or as Doig (2011) points out, guidance on why a country is more corrupt than another. Moreover, this inability to distinguish between different types of corruption (rather than the overall amount), as Andersson and Heywood (2009, 751) claim, gives the implication that all corruption is caused by the same incentive structure and basically reflects self-interest. But as Johnston (2005) highlights in his pioneering analysis of corruption syndromes and Gingerich (2013) posits in his study showing how different electoral rules determine different forms of corruption within parties, not all forms of corruption, like “illness,” spring from the same causes. Nor do they all have equal consequences. When the state and its security forces become captured (privatized?) and employed on behalf of violent criminal organizations, for example, it produces far more deadly consequences than, say, the petty bribery of bureaucratic officials to speed up the acquisition of a license. When policy and the institutions that produce them privilege moneyed interests over those of others, it affects general welfare and undermines popular representation, weakening the basic contours of democracy, producing oligarchy (Vergara 2020).1 But despite disagreement over its meaning or nature or failures to disaggregate it, corruption nonetheless enjoys immense political importance. It is critical to politicians seeking support in campaigns and public officials who strive to serve the public, to activists fighting for change, and to citizens who feel their voices are not heard and that their taxes are being stolen or spent illegitimately to serve the interests of others. Of course, to be fair, it should be noted that corruption is also important to individuals seeking to occupy and take advantage of the authority of the state, circumvent the law, bypass procedures, or alter the law or regulations to better serve themselves or advance the interests of their business, institution, or group. To add a pinch of sarcasm to that point, even among the “everyone” (officials and citizens) who agrees that corruption is wrong and should be curbed are those who engage in it (hence part of the collective action dilemma). Second, analysis suggests that we likely know more about the causes and consequences of corruption than about fighting it. At a purely academic level, solid research has supplied many answers regarding the causes and consequences of corruption. The advances in a relatively short period of time have been substantial. With contributions coming from a range of disciplines, the abundant research since the boom beginning in the mid-1990s points to a range of macro- and micro-level causes, details the understandings of the people about corruption, and amply demonstrates corruption’s pernicious

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economic, political, and even social psychological effects. And even in terms of fighting corruption, there is a solid body of research that helps us understand why the struggle is so difficult (societal expectations and the collective action dilemmas). However, though it is unrealistic to expect to find any magic bullet or universal formula, even the more pioneering academic work focusing on anticorruption specifically by such analysts as Mungiu-Pippidi and Johnston (2017) and Rotberg (2020) underscoring the central roles of political will and leadership are not particularly satisfying or even actionable.2 Beyond pure research, the practitioners in international and national organizations inside and outside governments dedicated to fighting corruption—the anticorruption or integrity warriors (Sampson 2005, 103)—also present a number of well-developed and detailed proposals based on their extensive analysis and practical experience. Many of these advances have been incorporated into international treaties and downloaded by governments. But despite these concerted efforts over the past twenty to thirty years, progress in fighting corruption has remained strikingly limited. In sum, despite the years of rising concerns and the development of expertise, analysis, reforms, treaties, and international assistance, corruption in many countries, according to the metrics at least, remains a major problem. In short, the dramatic crescendo in attention and analyses at all levels contrasts the stagnation in the levels of corruption. Clearly, both academics and practitioners are missing something.3 Third, at least part of what may be missing is a better understanding of the dynamics and the political context enveloping corruption and anticorruption. As anthropologists Muir and Gupta (2018) point out, corruption and anticorruption are in constant movement, as each anticorruption action transforms the logic of corruption and each corrupt practice calls for new anticorruption measures.4 To paraphrase a religious quote, when anticorruption warriors close one window, the corrupt open another. Greater attention to the dynamics of corruption thus entails recognizing how change is not linear largely because, as they say, when people fight against corruption, corruption tends to fight back. Substantial gains, as occurred in Brazil over many years, for example, can be reversed as politicians, besieged by an anticorruption wave, begin to take steps to block change and reverse course. Indeed, many of the graphs presented in Chapter 5 illustrate the nonlinear tendencies, while the analysis highlights various efforts by governments to obstruct investigations of their own allies and reverse prior gains in institutional development. Johnston and Fritzen (2021) stress the

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need for a theory of change to understand and improve anticorruption efforts. Indeed, attention to the dynamic aspect of corruption/ anticorruption relates to the evolution of the patterns and forms of corruption and anticorruption within countries. Do countries, for example, develop similar forms and patterns of corruption owing to some combination of societal and institutional factors (modernization theory), the pattern to fighting corruption, and/or the fact that certain forms of corruption are easier to address than others? It would seem, for instance, that illegal forms of corruption taking place within the bureaucracy (violation of first-order norms) are easier to combat than, say, corruption in the political sphere (violation of second-order norms) arising from economic inequality. Attention to the dynamic of corruption and anticorruption also relates to the position and reaction of voters and their role in the equation. How does a two-steps-forward two-steps-back pattern, for example, affect the public? Mobilized and seduced at one moment by anticorruption populist candidates who promise sweeping change, what happens the next time around when voters realize that such promises were at best simply unfulfilled, or worse, that the promises were insincere, a mere ploy to gain and exploit office? In a politicized setting with frustration over corruption peaking, has anticorruption rhetoric become the ticket to power and yet, as it has historically, the device to partake in the spoils? Closely akin to the issue of the dynamics in corruption and anticorruption is the historiography of the study of corruption and anticorruption. In an area where theory and practice seem to closely align, how have our ideas and approaches changed and evolved over the years? Clearly, second-generation approaches beginning in the mid-1990s that sparked the boom departed significantly from earlier, more exotic approaches just as some of the more recent literature builds on and yet departs from those in the early boom period. As noted, everything is iterative. Ideas and policies are constantly evaluated, assessed, criticized, revised, rethought, and redesigned. Even so, there still seems to be a lack of integration within the field. Studies focusing on corruption in developed countries like the United States, for instance, are not very well incorporated and integrated into the mainstream focus on corruption in developing countries; this is despite the common concerns and understandings of citizens in both developed and developing countries (Morris 2018). In addition to the dynamics, more attention is needed to better understand their political context. As noted, neither corruption nor

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anticorruption exists in a vacuum; both are inherently and inescapably political. Corruption is, after all, a political construct. And by the same token, political institutions inevitably embody political ideas and interests. From a Wittgensteinian perspective, none can be considered entirely politically neutral or objective (Mouffe 2005, 97). This essentially means that corruption and anticorruption are inherently politicized, particularly among those competing for and contesting political power. As Gupta (1995, 385, 388) notes, the discourse of corruption relates to the “cultural practices by which the state is symbolically” created, just as “the other face of a discourse of corruption . . . is a discourse of accountability.” Such antagonism, in turn, reflects the ideological tensions created by different underlying understandings of the role of the state and the nature of democracy (Mouffe 2005, 97). As a result, the left (right) tends to see the right (left) as facilitating corruption essentially by undermining the basic democratic principles they believe in. The right sees the empowered state championed by the left as creating the conditions leading to corruption; the left, in turn, assails the empowered market and state capture by corporations promoted by the right as corrupt. As highlighted in Chapter 6, the politicization and polarization of corruption and anticorruption complicates efforts to fight it. Anticorruption efforts applied selectively and with political motivations, as noted previously, tend not to have lasting effects (Taylor 2018, 65). Perhaps there is no escaping this. Efforts can be made to minimize the degree of politicization and even employ some sort of common (near apolitical or nonpolitical) discourse on corruption and anticorruption. But such a scientific understanding of corruption delinked from political ideology or the contestation of power—perhaps from a strict administrative science, criminal justice, or state/society perspective—may be useful in some ways in advancing the fight against corruption; in the end these would still be illusory, incorporating hidden, underlying political and ideological principles and biases. Perhaps the most appropriate response, as Johnston (2014, ch. 3) suggests, is to fight corruption in a sense by neglecting it, focusing attention instead on simply improving policy delivery (and representation) rather than specifically addressing corruption. Recognizing the political context also means moving away from an overwhelming focus on personal greed as the underlying cause of corruption (facilitated or inhibited by the institutional opportunities and risks), thus treating corruption as a type of crime, and a closer

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examination of the political reasons and purposes behind both corruption and anticorruption (Bauhr 2017). As noted, in the mix of things, corruption and anticorruption in many ways are often secondary concerns—the residual effects of the tradeoffs politicians and citizens constantly make in order to achieve multiple objectives. Perhaps the clearest example of this noted earlier was the Trump administration gaining safe third-party agreements with Guatemala and Honduras (a higher priority) in exchange for backing away from US support to the international anticorruption commissions in those countries (a lower priority). This does not mean the US is opposed to fighting corruption, of course, merely that other objectives are more important. One interesting dynamic found in many of the cases examined here suggests that some of the more robust changes in fighting corruption are actually made when governments are weakened by allegations and charges of corruption and hence lose control of the agenda, resulting in heightened involvement of civil society and civil society– led reforms that tend to empower autonomous professionals within the government. This suggests that apart from both the left/right and in-power/out-of-power frameworks studies here, it may be possible to envision corruption/anticorruption within a state/society context in which not only does society see the state as inherently corrupt regardless of the party or ideology holding the reigns, but that the only way to counter the power of the state is through the mobilization of society. Many in Latin America, like Mexico, have long since adopted this approach by creating citizen-led autonomous oversight institutions. Yet maintaining that state/society (official/citizen) distinction is inherently difficult and arguably erodes with time. Such citizen-directed institutions risk becoming politicized, drawn into the political fray, captured by political parties or other interests, or weakened by more powerful and popular governments. In certain ways, rather than rising above the politics they seek to control, they may too often become a part of it. Though many now recognize the importance of citizen participation in fighting corruption, rejecting the circular illogic of relying on the government to police itself, clearly more research is needed to understand the conditions under which citizen participation arises, resists capture, and effectively alters the levels and forms of corruption. Fourth, and closely related to the political context, it is important to recognize the link between the politicization and polarization of corruption/anticorruption and contemporary populism. As recent expe-

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rience suggests, media-filtered scandals ignite the public’s concerns about corruption, nurturing sentiments that all politicians are corrupt and should all be booted out. Democracy, of course, facilitates this in some limited ways. Whether this creates a toxic or tonic environment, under certain institutional conditions it clearly sets the stage for outsider candidates to employ a populist discourse and take advantage of the polarized setting. Politically, the idea of corruption easily lends itself to a populist discourse since by definition it depicts a corrupt group exploiting a victimized people. And yet, much of the literature on contemporary populism suggests that it is a toxic environment. It envisions populists as con artists who seemingly capitalize on the political opportunity to gain and exploit power—that anticorruption becomes the device to gain power and corruption the means to exploit the spoils of victory (Curini 2015, 2017; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2012; Kossow 2019; Mounk 2020; Mudde, 2004; Mungiu-Pippidi 2020; Urbinati 2013). While this antipopulist stance (echoed by pundits and politicians) certainly draws on many real-world experiences, it also seems to reflect a certain pro-elite ideological bias against efforts to define corruption more broadly or on the need to curtail existing elite and institutional privileges. However, this narrative—which also calls for depoliticizing corruption (a narrower institutional and law enforcement approach) and for nonpopulist (rational, establishment-based) leadership—arguably represents certain entrenched interests, a continuation of the status quo, elitism and oligarchy, and even gradual, piecemeal reforms brought about through compromise with those who exercise power rather than through confrontation. Many of those things may sound good, of course, and may perhaps even be desirable. Still, given the record of fighting corruption, neither populist nor nonpopulist leaders have made much headway. And achieving a rational, pluralistic-based apolitical focus on corruption may be illusionary. Finally, and fastened to many of the points raised already, it is important to better explore the many dilemmas inherent within corruption and anticorruption. The previous chapter highlighted certain dilemmas tied to the politics of anticorruption, such as the epistemological problem, how attacking institutional corruption appears like attacks on the checks and balances, and the problem of scarce resources, but there are various other dilemmas. They include but are not limited to the impossibility of creating an objective definition or discourse on corruption or even neutral institutions free from politics and bias; how the imperfect combination of democracy and capitalism—given the state’s structural dependency on capital and

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hence privileging of certain interests over others, despite democracy and the rule of law being rooted in principles to the contrary— inevitably creates certain forms of corruption and the inequality that drives it; the dilemma (and trade-offs) the state faces, as James Madison ([1788] 1961) famously noted in the Federalist No. 51, “of first creating a government that rule over the people and then obligating it to regulate itself” (emphasis added); the dilemmas of overcoming the many political obstacles to reform noted here; and even the dilemma individuals face of reconciling their own self-image as a moral being (and hence opposed to corruption) and yet, too often, finding themselves engaging in it. Such dilemmas not only represent a challenge to the study of this all-important concept but also reflect corruption’s inherently political nature. For the well-intentioned left and the right, “apolitical” practitioners and citizens alike, by definition corruption—which presents the challenge of controlling the power of the powerful—fundamentally weakens democracy, thereby transforming the fight against corruption into the struggle to perfect, democratize, deepen, or realize democracy.

Notes 1. Gilens and Page (2014) show how public policy in the United States tends to reflect more strongly the interests of economic elites and organized groups representing business than the interests of the general population. Gilens (2012) concludes that this pattern of government responsiveness corresponds more to plutocracy than democracy. 2. In no way do I wish to minimize the importance of the research that seeks to identify the factors that seem to account for successfully diminishing corruption. And while political leadership or political will are clearly important in these and other cases, problems arise in identifying these variables separately from the outcome they seek to explain. Can political will or leadership be observed prior to knowing whether the anticorruption efforts succeeded or failed? Or might these simply be a sort of post-hoc rationalization? Moreover, explanations focusing on political will or leadership (voluntarism) seem to discount the role that institutions play in producing leadership and shaping political will. Parliamentary systems, for example, do not produce prime ministers with no prior political experience as the US institutions have. 3. There is a possibility that what appears as a lack of progress in fighting corruption may in fact reflect heightened standards and expectations—a gradual raising of the bar. It is also possible that what appears as a lack of progress stems from greater transparency and the proliferation of media stories and outlets resulting from social media. 4. As a result, the authors note, anticorruption always produces unintended consequences. Legalistic modes of anticorruption, for example, can distract people from other forms of corruption that may be legal, or anticorruption can encourage ways of gaming the system (Muir and Gupta 2018).

Methodological Appendix

THE FOLLOWING PROVIDES MORE DETAILED INFORMATION on the measures used in Chapter 5, arranged alphabetically.

Americas Barometer (AB)

The AB are public opinion polls periodically conducted by Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). Two specific measures are employed here: the perception of corruption, and victimization or participation rates. The perception of corruption is based on this question: “Taking into account your own experience or what you have heard, corruption among public officials is: very common, common, uncommon, or very uncommon?” Data depicts the score for degrees of “common” by respondents. Victimization rates reflect a composite score based on a series of questions asking whether a police officer asked for a bribe in the last twelve months, whether any government employee asked for a bribe in the last twelve months, whether a soldier or military officer asked for a bribe, whether individuals having any official dealings with the municipal/local government had to pay “any money above that required by law,” and similar questions related to the courts, public health systems, and the schools. The AB provides data for many Latin American countries in 2006–2007, 2008– 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. See https://www.vanderbilt.edu /lapop/about-americasbarometer.php. 207

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Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) This metric gauges various indicators of democracy, asking experts to assess the extent certain criteria have been met within a country. Here, three integrity measures from the BTI’s Rule of Law Index are used: separation of power, independent judiciary, and prosecution of abuse of office. Separation of power is based on the question “To what extent is there a working separation of powers (checks and balances)?” Responses are grouped using a 1 to 10 scale based on the following matrix: 10 = “There is a clear separation of power with mutual checks and balances”; 7 = “The separation of powers is in place and functioning. Checks and balances are occasionally subject to interference, but a restoration of balance is sought”; 4 = “The separation of powers is formally established but weak in practice. One branch, generally the executive, has largely undermined checks and balances”; 1= “There is no separation of powers, neither de jure nor de facto.” Independent judiciary corresponds to the question “To what extent does an independent judiciary exist?” Responses are grouped using a 1 to 10 scale based on the following matrix: 0 = “The judiciary is independent and free both from unconstitutional intervention by other institutions and from corruption. It is institutionally differentiated, and there are mechanisms for judicial review of legislative or executive acts”; 7 = “The judiciary is largely independent, even though occasionally its decisions are subordinated to political authorities or influenced by corruption. It is institutionally differentiated, but partially restricted by insufficient territorial or functional operability”; 4 = “The independence of the judiciary is heavily impaired by political authorities and high levels of corruption. It is to some extent institutionally differentiated, but severely restricted by functional deficits, insufficient territorial operability and scarce resources”; and 1 = “The judiciary is not independent and not institutionally differentiated.” Prosecution of abuse in office reflects responses to the question “To what extent are public officeholders who abuse their positions prosecuted or penalized?” Responses are grouped using a 1 to 10 scale based on the following matrix: 10 = “Officeholders who break the law and engage in corruption are prosecuted rigorously under established laws and always attract adverse publicity”; 7 = “Officeholders who break the law and engage in corruption generally are prosecuted under established laws and often attract adverse publicity, but occasionally slip through political, legal or procedural loopholes”; 4 = “Officeholders who break the law and engage in corruption are not ade-

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quately prosecuted, but occasionally attract adverse publicity”; and 1 = “Officeholders who break the law and engage in corruption can do so without fear of legal consequences or adverse publicity.” Additional details on the component measures of the BTI’s Rule of Law Index can be found at https://www.bti-project.org/content/en/downloads /codebooks/BTI_2020_Codebook.pdf. For general information, see https://www.bti-project.org/en/home.html.

Corruption Perception Index (CPI) Transparency International’s (TI’s) Corruption Perception Index is compiled from multiple surveys to produce a single measure per country. TI’s 2014 CPI included twelve data sources, including the Bertelsmann Transformation Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit County Risk Ratings, and Freedom House’s Nations in Transit (Rotberg 2020, 39), and roughly fifty variables based on questions ranging from “In your country, how common is diversion of public funds to companies, individuals or groups due to corruption?” to “Do whistleblowers, anticorruption activists, investigators, and journalists enjoy legal protections that make them feel secure about reporting cases of bribery and corruption?” Some questions broadly relate to the “political system” while others specifically ask about the extent of corruption within specific institutions like the customs office or city government. Though considered expert opinion, one of the sources in TI’s CPI, World Justice Project Rule of Law survey, includes responses from experts and the general population. The annual report captures perceptions within the past two years, hence 2006 includes data from 2005 and 2006; 2019 from 2018 and 2019. In 2012 TI announced a new methodology that allowed for comparison of data across time. It is at that point that the scale changed from 0–10 to a 0–100 scale. See https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pressrelease/2012 _CPITechnicalMethodologyNote_EMBARGO_EN.pdf; for general information about the CPI, see https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi.

Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) Produced by the World Economic Forum, the GCR includes, among other sources, the Executive Opinion Survey. Three variables are used

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from the survey: first, diversion of public funds (“In your country, how common is illegal diversion of public funds to companies, individuals, or groups?” (1 = “very commonly occurs”; 7 = “never occurs”); and second, irregular payments and bribes. This latter variable refers to average scores across five components of the following question: “In your country, how common is it for firms to make undocumented extra payments or bribes connected with (i) imports and exports; (ii) public utilities; (iii) annual tax payments; (iv) awarding of public contracts and licenses; (v) obtaining favorable judicial decisions?” In each case, the answer ranges from 1 (“very common”) to 7 (“never occurs”). The third variable is favoritism: “In your country, to what extent do government officials show favoritism to wellconnected firms and individuals when deciding upon policies and contracts?” (1 = “show favoritism to a great extent” to 7 = “do not show favoritism at all”). Reports from 2006–2007 to 2017–2018 refer to two years, with surveys conducted in both years and the averages weighted equally for reporting purposes. The responses were coded for the prior year (e.g., 2006–2007 data is coded under 2006). Note that the 2018 and 2019 GBRs show a measure for incidence of corruption; however, this measure is the CPI. See http://reports.weforum .org/?doing_wp_cron=1597804780.9563028812408447265625.

Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) The GCB is based on public opinion polls conducted by Transparency International. The surveys provide more than one measure of corruption. The current study uses national responses on questions relating to:

1. Participation in corruption: “In the past 12 months have you or anyone living in your household paid a bribe in any form to each of the following institutions/organizations?” Note that the list of institutions has changed over the years, though they are broadly similar. Asked in the 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2019 editions. 2. Changes in corruption: “In the past 3 years, how has the level of corruption in this country changed?” Response categories are “Increased a lot,” “Increased a little,” “Stayed the same,” “Decreased a little,” “Decreased a lot,” and “Do not know/No

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answer”. Asked in the 2013, 2017, and 2019 edition. Tables and analysis utilize net scores (the combination of the categories “a lot” and “a little”) to calculate perceived increase and decrease in corruption. 3. Assessment of government anticorruption efforts: “How would you assess your current government’s actions in the fight against corruption?” Response categories are: “The government is very effective in the fight against corruption”; “The government is somewhat effective in the fight against corruption”; “The government is neither effective nor ineffective in the fight against corruption”; “The government is somewhat ineffective in the fight against corruption”; and “The government is very ineffective in the fight against corruption.” Tables and analyses utilize net scores for effectiveness (the combination of “is very effective” and “is somewhat effective.” Asked in the 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2019 editions. In the 2017 and 2019 questionnaires, however, the respondents were not presented with the response option “The government is neither effective nor ineffective in the fight against corruption,” as occurred in prior years. 4. Agreement as to whether the government is run by big interests: “The government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” Response categories are “Strongly disagree,” “Tend to disagree,” “Neither agree nor disagree,” “Tend to agree,” and “Strongly agree.” Analysis here uses net agree (combination of “tend to agree” and “strongly agree”). This question is included only in the 2013 and 2019 reports.

Following are the dates of the surveys for the different editions of the Global Corruption Barometer:

• 10th edition, 2019, surveys between January and May 2019; • 9th edition, 2017, surveys between May and June 2016; • 8th edition, 2013, surveys between September 2012 and March 2013; • 7th edition, 2010-11, surveys between June and September 2010; • 6th edition, 2009, surveys between October 2008 and February 2009; • 5th edition, 2007, surveys between June and September 2007; • 4th edition, 2006, surveys between June and September 2006. • For more information, see https://www.transparency.org/en/gcb.

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Open Budget Survey (OBS) Conducted by the International Budget Partnership and based on expert assessments, this index evaluates whether governments give the public access to budget information, opportunities to participate in budget processes, and capacity and independence of formal oversight. The index uses a scale of 0 = poor to 100 = good. The expert surveys are conducted in the year prior to the report. Interactive data for 2006 to 2012 are available at https://survey.internationalbudget .org/#homeinstitutions; full data are available at https://survey .internationalbudget.org/#home.

World Justice Report (WJR) The World Justice Report provides an index of the rule of law broadly conceived. Two indices are used: the Absence of Corruption Index and the Limited Government Index. The Absence of Corruption Index is based on assessments of whether officials in the executive, judicial, police and military, and legislature do not use public office for private gain. The Limited Government Index includes assessments of limitation on the government by the fundamental law, the legislature, the judiciary, independent auditing and review; and whether government officials are sanctioned for misconduct, government powers are subject to nongovernmental checks, and transition power is subject to rule of law. These measures reflect a combination of expert opinion collected through annual expert surveys (QRQ) and public opinion polls (GPP) conducted in most years in the three largest cities in a country (samples are nationally representative only since 2018). Part of the difficulty in utilizing this source is that the years of the two surveys differ: the QRQ is conducted annually whereas the GPP is conducted every two to three years depending on the country. The 2020 report, for instance, is not used here because although the expert portion reflects information from 2019, the surveys for the countries span the years 2017 (Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico), 2018 (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, United States), and 2019 (Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama). Data is recorded for the year prior to the year of the report. For more information, consult https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index.

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Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) Initiated by Daniel Kaufmann and Aart Kraay, the World Bank WGI reports on six dimensions of governance, two of which are used here: the Control of Corruption (CC) and Rule of Law (Kaufmann et al. 2009). The data for the CC incorporates six representative sources gauging fifteen variables, and sixteen nonrepresentative sources reporting on twenty-nine other variables. The wide range of variables includes the public’s trust in politicians, diversion of public funds, irregular payments in various areas, state capture, level of “petty” corruption, the intrusiveness of the country’s bureaucracy, the extent of “red tape,” transparency, and the prosecution of office abuse. The Rule of Law Index “captures perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.” Each data source uses a distinct list of variables. Specific variables and sources can be accessed at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi /Home/Documents. While the indicators and surveys capture “the experiences of citizens, entrepreneurs and experts” (Rotberg 2020, 39), the overwhelming source of data are from expert opinion.

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Index

accountability, 30, 36, 112, 114, 187, 193, 203; controls, horizontal, vertical, 24; Argentina, 79–81; Brazil, 85, 87–88, 90–91, 116, 118, 179; Mexico, 92; the United States, 69, 103, 105–107; Venezuela 108–109; measures of, 124–125; weakening of, 79, 81, 90–91, 106, 116–118; orthdox/right recommendations, 24–26, 36. See also Klitgaard administrative corruption, 43, 55–56, 70, 192 administrative reforms/simplication, 25, 38, 50–51, 56, 112. See also professionalizing and depoliticizing the bureaucracy Administrative science focus on corruption, 170–171, 192, 203 Africa, 27, 125 Americas Barometer, 13, 124–125, 130, 207 anthropological perspective, 5, 19, 29, 31, 35, 47 anticorruption, 2, 5; anticorruption parties, 4; Bolsonaro policies, 87–91; Fernández de Kirchner policies, 78– 81, 172–174, 182, 185, 190; López Obrador policies, 87 91–95, 112; Lula policies, 84–87, 179; Macri

policies, 81–84, 167, 182, 191; Maduro policies, 106–110; Peña Nieto policies, 50–51, 56; Trump policies, 89, 102–107, 112, 114, 116, 119–120, 178, 180–185, 193, 204 Anticorruption Office (OA) (Argentina), 78, 81–83 anticorruption, integrity warriors, 198, 201 antinepotism decree (Argentina), 83 Argentina, 12, 20, 76–77, 192; anticorruption policies, Fernández de Kirchner, 78–81, 172–174, 182, 185, 190; anticorruption policies, Macri 81–84, 167, 182, 191; corruption measures 132–133, 162, 165–166, 212; presidential terms, 77, 128–129. See also Fernández de Kirchner and Macri Aristotle, 32–34, 37, 46 Auditoria Superior de la Federación (ASF)(Mexico), 119 autonomous organizations in Mexico 98, 119 Ayotzinapa (Mexico), 93, 178, 196

Banfiled: amoral familism, 45 Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 13, 124, 131, 164, 208, 209

243

244

Index

Bolivia: corruption measures, 122, 128, 162, 165–166, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 Bolsanaro, Flavio (Brazil), 91 118 Bolsonaro, Jair (Brazil)1, 12, 49, 56– 63, 70–73, 84 112, 114, 116, 118, 177, 179; allegations of against, 90; anticorruption policies 87–91; campaign rhetoric 59–60, 71, 73; presidential term, 77, 128–129 Brazil, 4, 12, 20, 49–50, 76–77, 116– 118, 172–173, 177–178, 192–193, 201; anticorruption policies, Bolsonaro, 87–91; anticorruption policies, Lula, 84–87, 179; campaigns, elections, 56–58, 174; Clean Record Law, 87, 116, 184; corruption measures, 134–135, 158, 162, 165–166; presidential terms 77, 128–129; structural causes of corruption, 189–190. See also Bolsonaro, Lula and Rousseff Brazilian Democratic Movement, 91

campaigns, 3–5, 12, 115, 174, 186; anticorruption rhetoric, 50, 56, 70– 72, 84, 87, 110, 116, 173, 186, 194, 200; Argentina, 81, 84, 117; Brazil, 59–62, 73, 84, 87–89, 91; Mexico, 51, 62, 64, 74, 92, 94–95, 102, 148; the United States, 57–58, 65–69, 71, 74, 102, 104–106, 120, 183 campaign finance, 32, 37–38, 48, 65– 66, 68, 72, 77, 79–80, 104, 167, 180 Canada: corruption measures, 131, 136–137, 158, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 capitalism, 39, 205; cause of corruption, 6, 31, 38; challenge to democracy, 37; crony capitalism, 62, 74; definitions of corruption, 9 Casa Blanca scandal (Mexico), 93, 95 Center for Public Integrity. See Index of Public Integrity CFE (Mexico), 92, 98, 119 checks and balances, 8, 9, 40, 41, 44, 124, 158, 183, 187–188, 193, 205, 208. See also accountability Chile: corruption measures, 138–139, 158, 162, 173, 212; presidential terms, 128–129

China, 4 citizens, 36, 58, 61, 68, 100, 192, 200, 204, 206; participation in anticorruption, 64, 77, 79, 87, 92– 97, 99, 113, 116, 193, 198; perceptions of corruption, 124, 126, 184, 196, 202. See also participation in corruption, Citizens United v. FEC (2010) (USA), 1, 66 civil-society, civil society organizations, 83, 87–90, 92, 94, 102, 112, 114–117, 131, 179, 184– 185, 204 Clean Record Law (Brazil), 87, 116, 184 Clean Up Corruption in Washington Act (USA), 69 clientelism, 33, 36–37, 64, 81 Clinton, Hillary, 68 collective–action dilemma, 36–37, 42, 200–201 Colombia: corruption measures, 128, 159, 212; presidential terms, 128– 129 Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), 180–181 common good. See public interest Comptroller General (CGU) (Brazil), 85, 88 Contract with America (Trump), 104 Control of Corruption Index, (Worldwide Governance Indicators), 121, 124, 127, 133, 135–157 corruption: as a campaign issue, 116, 173, 195; definitions, 2, 5, 29–30, 34–35; dilemmas, 205– 206; leftist approach, 31–39; measurements, 122, 131, 148–149, 158–159, 162, 167, 212; orthodox approach to corruption, 14, 22–23, 26–30, 38, 42; Corruption Perception Index (CPI) (Transparency International) , 13, 57, 111, 124–127, 132–168, 199, 209–210 Costa Rica, 122, 128, 131, 159, 162, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 CPI. See Corruption Perception Index. Cuba: corruption measures, 128, 159, 162; presidential terms, 128–129;

Index property declarations, 54, 72, 78, 82, 96–97, 110, 113

democracy, 6, 48, 65, 79, 170; campaign rhetoric on, 59–60, 65; deepening, expansion of, 38, 41, 43, 78, 80, 113, 197, 206; definitions of corruption, 34–35; left–right views on, 7–8, 170, 188, 198, 203; liberal/Madisonian views of, 7–8, 11, 20, 22, 25, 27, 40; links to corruption, 23, 26, 30, 38, 43; measurements, 124, 208; republican/leftist views of, 33–34, 41, 47, 200; polarizaiton and, 171, 194, 205; threats to, 2, 5, 9, 37, 39, 41, 43, 47, 88–89, 169, 171, 187– 188, 192, 194, 199, 206 democratic paradox, 8 dependence corruption, 37 discourse analysis, 20, 50 Dominican Republic: corruption measures, 128, 159, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 dos Sanguessugas scandal (Brazil), 86 “drain the swamp,” 67, 69, 102–103, 107

economic institutionalism, 23, 43. See also RC theory economic prosperity: impact on politicization, polarization of corruption, 190 Ecuador: corruption measures, 140– 141, 158, 162, 165–166; presidential terms, 128–129 El Salvador: corruption measures; 142– 143, 158, 162, 174–175, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 elections, 4, 7, 24, 41, 46–47, 79, 108, 124; in Brazil, 50, 56–57, 61, 88, 118, 177; in Eastern Europea, 4; in Mexico, 50, 56–57, 62, 119, 167; in the United States, 50, 56–57, 65–69, 106, 183; impact on corruption, 174, 189, 193; reelection, 82, 104, 117 Elizabeth Warren, Senator, 1 emoluments clauses (USA), 105 empirical analyses of corruption, 3–5, 24, 26–27, 30, 121–122, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)(USA), 104

245

Estafa Maestra (Mexico), 101 ethical universalism, 34, 36, 199 Executive Survey. See Global Competitiveness Report expert vs. public perceptions of corruption, 57–58, 125, 168

FBI (USA), 105, 183 Federal Communications Commission (USA), 119 Federal Election Commission (FEC) (USA), 66 Federal Police (Brazil), 84, 91, 179 Fernández de Kirchner, Cristina (Argentina), 12, 20, 113, 116–117, 132, 178; anitcorruption policies, 78–81, 84, 86, 113, 116–117, 178, 190–191; media, judiciary, political reforms, 79–80 presidential terms 77, 128–129 fideicomisos (Mexico), 96–97, 118 Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF). Brazil, 177; Mexico, 101, 177 Financial System Customer’s Registry (Brazil), 86 first-order norms (corruption), 11, 34, 36, 43, 202 first-generation corruption studies, 22 FMLN (El Salvador), 128–129, 174–176 Fobaproa (Mexico), 63 Fox, Vicente (Mexico), 58, 60, 74, 187 Federal Police (FP) (Brazil), 85–86, 90–91, 179 free market. See capitalism

Glass-Steagall Act, 66 global (international) anticorruption regime, 111–112. See also orthodox view, anticorruption or integrity warriors Global Competitiveness Report (World Economic Forum), 13, 124, 127, 209 Global Corruption Barometer (Transparency International), 13, 57–58, 124–125, 130, 165–166, 210–211 good governance, 1, 5, 14, 19, 25, 29– 30, 39, 46, 82, 186, 195, 198 government (state) intervention, 25, 46, 53

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Index

group theory. See social identity theory Guatemala, 38; corruption measures, 129, 131, 144–145, 158, 162, 179– 181, 204, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 Hobbes, 46 Honduras, 179–181, 187, 204, 212: corruption measures, 129, 131, 146–147, 158, 162; presidential terms, 128–129 Hotesur scandal (Argentina), 80, 117 Human Rights Watch, 79

ideological distance, 3, 5 ideology: left, right defined, 6–8 Index of Public Integrity (Center for Public Integrity), 124 individual conduct, corruption as, 22, 41, 51, 53 inequality, 11, 41, 43, 57, 63, 65; as cause of corruption, 38, 40, 52, 62, 202, 206; as consequence of corruption, 65; within leftist views on corruption, 41, 43, Inspectors General (USA), 100, 120 Institute for Access to Information (INAI) (Mexico), 98 institutional corruption, 32, 35, 38–41, 43, 187–188, 205 Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico (PRI), 175 Integral System of Information on Program Beneficiary Lists (Mexico), 99 integrity system, 123, 124; measures of, 131 International Budget Partnership (Open Budget Index) 13, 124, 212. International Monetary Fund (IMF), 22 judicial reform, under Fernández de Kirschner, 79

Keiko Fujimori, 183 (the) Kirchners, 80–81, 117, 132, 167, 175–176, 182 Klitgaard’s formula for corruption, 28

Lava Jato (Brazil), 56, 59, 61, 87, 89, 91, 116, 179

lawfare, 176, 186, 196. See also weaponizing corruption/anticorruption legal approach to corruption, 46 legal corruption, 6, 11, 16, 27, 33, 36, 39, 41–43, 64, 71, 74, 96, 167 Limits on Government Index (World Justice Institute’s Rule of Law Index), 130–131 lobbyists, 58, 67, 68–69, 74, 103–104, 119 López Obrador, Ándres Manuel (Mexico), 1, 11–12, 77, 118, 129; anticorruption policies, perspectives, 51–58, 94–96, 98, 101–102, 112–114, 118, 175, 190; campaign rhetoric, 62–65, 70–74; criticisms of 174–175; presidential term 77, 128–129 Lozoya, Emilio, 74 Lula da Silva, Inácio (Brazil), 12, 20, 57, 77; anticorruption policies, 84– 87, 113, 115, 117–118, 175, 177, 179, 190; presidential term, 77, 128–129

Machiavelli, 32, 37, 46 Macri, Mauricio, 12, 77, 78, 108, 128, 132, 173; anticorruption policies, 81–84, 167, 182, 191; presidential term 77, 128–129 Maduro, Nicolás, 12, 20, 76–77, 113– 116, 120, 129; anticorruption policies, 106–110; presidential terms, 77, 128–129 market forces. See capitalism Marx(ism): views of the state 30–31, 40 McDonnell v. U.S. (2016) (USA), 1, 48 Mensalao scandal (Brazil), 59, 86, 115, 118, 178–179, 184 Merton needs–end theory, 45 MESICIC (Follow–Up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter– American Convention against Corruption), 76, 78, 83 Mexico, 4, 12, 17, 20, 49 112, 118, 129, 174–178, 182, 184– 186, 190, 196, 204; anticorruption policies, perspectives under López Obrador, 51–53, 56, 62–64,71, 95–102; anticorruption perspective, policies under Peña Nieto 50–51, 56; 87 91–

Index 95, 112; corruption measures, 122, 131, 148–149, 158–159, 162, 167, 212; National Anticorruption System (SNA), 116; public opinion on corruption, 57–58; presidential terms 77, 128–129 Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), 180–181 moches (Mexico), 96 modernization theory, 19, 23–24, 40, 45, 52, 202 moderate vs. radical left in Latin America: corruption measures, 165–166 Montesquieu, 8 Moro, Sérgio (Brazil), 91 National Action Party, Mexico. See PAN National Anticorruption System (SNA), Mexico, 64, 94, 98, 118, 182, 190; Venezuela, 108 National Association of Federal Prosecutors (Brazil), 91 National Electoral Institute (INE) (Mexico), 98 National Strategy to Combat Corruption and Money Laundering (ENCCLA) (Brazil), 85 neo–institutionalism, 23–24 neoliberalism: corruption and, 9, 11, 25–30, 37–41, 43–44, López Obrador, views on, 52–55, 70, 98, 175, 183 neopatrimonialism, 43 Nicaragua: corruption measures, 129, 159, 162, 212; presidential terms 128–129 null hypothesis, 14, 73, 158, 167

OA. See Anticorruption Office (Argentina) OAS. See Organization of American States Obama, Barak (USA) 58, 104, 116, 129, 181 OECD. See Organization of Economic Cooperation and Develoment Office of Personnel Management (USA), 120

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offshore banking, 66 oligarchy, 8–9, 37, 53, 200, 205 Open Budget Survey, 13, 131–138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 149–150, 152, 154, 156, 160, 164, 212 Open Government Partnership, 76, 78, 79, 88, 92, 97, 99, 103, 113, 118, 124 Organization of American States (OAS), 76, 82, 111, 181 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Develoment (OECD), 36, 78, 82, 84, 111 Órganos Internos de Control (OIC) (Mexico), 95 out-of-power groups, 3, 13, 14, 167, 169–171, 175, 185–186, 192, 194, 199, 204. See also group theory

Pact for Mexico, 94 PAN (National Action Party, Mexico), 119, 175 Panama: corruption measures, 129, 131, 158, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 Paraguay: corruption measures, 129, 131, 158; presidential terms, 128–129 partisanship, 3, 196 participation in corruption: measures of, 123. Pdvsa (Venezuela), 109, 120 Pemex (Mexico), 74, 92, 95, 98, 102, 174 Pendleton Act (USA), 105 Peña Nieto, 11–12; anticorruption policies, perspectives, 49–52, 55– 57, 71, 73–74, 86, 92–94, 97–98, 101–102, 112, 115–116, 174, 178, 184; presidential term, 77, 128–129 perceptions of corruption, 3, 4, 121– 125, 173. See also Corruption Perceptions Index personal interest, in definition of corruption 23 Peru: corruption measures, 129, 131, 154–155, 158, 184, 192, 212; presidential terms, 128–129 Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND) (Mexico), 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 95, 118 Plan de Patria, 2013–2019 (Venezuela), 107 Plato, 32, 37

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Index

PND. See Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (Mexico) polarization, 1, 15, 17, 41, 73, 172– 174, 198; civil society organizations and, 185; conditions facilitating, 190–191; definition, 171; impact of, 191–195, 203; populism and, 204; policy swings, affects on, 191 politicians dilemma, Geddes, 36 politicization, 170, 173, 191; impact 192–193; conditions affecting, 190 popular participation, 7, 26, 37, 38, 40, 76 populism/populists, 7, 49; attacks on capitalism, democracy, 39, 44; campaign rhetoric, 56, 58–59, 67, 69–73, 202; definition, 8–9; left– populist, right–populist views on corruption, 2, 9, 12–13, 50, 65, 70, 72, 76, 88, 114, 188; link to politicizaiton/polarizaiton, 204–205; views on corruption, 2, 53 power factor hypothesis, 3, 10, 13, 169, 171–172, 198 presidential terms, 77, 128–129 President’s Management Agenda: Modernizing Government for the 21st Century (USA), 103 press, 25–26, 91, 123, 196 PRI. See Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico principal-agent framework (PA), 11, 23, 36, 43 private sector, 9, 31, 43–44, 56, 113. See also capitalism and neoliberalism privatization: as corruption, 52. See also neoliberalism proactive transparency, 38, 118 professional bureaucracy, 112, 115, 187, 192, 204 professionalizing, depoliticizing the bureaucracy, 12, 23, 25, 36, 62, 110, 112, 186, 198 PT (Brazil). See Workers Party public interest, definition of corruption, 11, 30, 33–35, 41, 47; critique of, 39; in anticorruption programs, 54– 55, 107, 187 Puerto Rico, 27–28

RC (rational-choice) theory, 23, 47 Reagan, Ronald (USA), 69, 74 religion, 45, 47 Republicans (USA), 106, 127, 180 Romania, 4 Rousseff, Dilma (Brazil), 32, 37, 57, 60, 128, 185; impeachment of, 171– 172, 177, 190–191 route of the “k-money” scandal (Argentina), 80 rule of law, 1, 13, 205; in anticorruption 26, 38, 40, 43, 54, 57; in Bertelsmann Transformation Index 208–209; definition of 47; in democracy 7 Rule of Law Index (Worldwide Governance Indicators), 13, 127, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 151, 153, 155, 157, 163, 213 Rule of Law Index (World Justice Institute), 13, 124–159, 209, 212–213 Sanders, Senator Bernie (USA), 12, 49, 56, 58, 64–66, 68, 70–72, 74 Sandoval Ballesteros, Irma Erendira (Mexico), 96 scandals 57, 193; Argentina, 80, 84, 117; Brazil, 59–60, 85, 118; impact of, 110, 115, 117, 173, 175, 178– 179, 184, 189, 192, 196, 204; involving presidents, allies, 76, 87, 116, 173, 178; Mexico, 86, 93–96, 100, 102; political construction of, 171. See also Casa Blanca, dos Sanguessugas, Hotesur, route of the “k–money,” suitcase scandal second-generation of corruption scholars, 22 second-order norms, 11, 34–35, 43, 202 Secretary of Public Affairs (SFP) (Mexico), 54, 92, 94, 99, 100, 114, 118. security, corruption related to, 51 Secretary of Public Affairs (SFP), Mexico, 54, 64, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 119; sanctions, 100. See also Sandoval, Irma Seized Assets National System (SNBA) (Brazil), 86

Index Sindicatura General de la Nación (Argentina), 78, 81, 83 SNA. See National Anticorruption System social capital theory, 45 social identity theory (group theory), 172 social trust, 45 sociological perspective, 35 state capture, 30, 36, 38, 43, 52, 55, 62–63, 81, 110, 203, 213; in Marxist thought, 30–31, 40; as unit of analysis, 23 status quo, 58, 188, 205; differing perspectives on, 8, 40–41, 44, structural corruption, 32–33, 39, 41–42 suitcase scandal (Argentina), 80, 117 Supreme Court, USA 1, 48 systemic corruption, 5, 32. See also institutional corruption tax evasion, 98 Temer, Michel (Brazil), 60, 128 tolerance of corruption, 3, 54, 189 Transparencia Venezuela, 176 transparency, 23, 25, 36, 38, 42, 43, 110–113, 186, 197, 206; in Argentina, 78, 81–82, 190; in Brazil, 85–86, 88–90; in Mexico, 51, 54, 56, 59, 92–97, 118; in the United States, 103; in Venezuela, 108–109; measures of, 124–125, 131, 209, 213 Transparency International, 13, 22, 57, 76, 109, 122–166, 209–210. See also Corruption Perception Index Trump, 1, 12, 49, 56, 156; anticorruption policies, 89, 102– 107, 112, 114, 116, 119–120, 178, 180–185, 193, 204; campaign rhetoric, elections, 49, 58, 67–72, 74; family of 105; presidential terms, 77, 128–129 UIF. See Financial Intelligence Unit

249

Ukraine affair (USA), 120 United Nations (UN), 19, 30, 82, 111, 180, 184 United States, 20, 89, 202, 206; anticorruption policies, Trump, 102–104, 173, 180, 183, 185, 187; corruption in campaign rhetoric, 64–71; corruption measures, 57–58, 125, 156–158, 162, 212; inequality, 57; presidential terms, 128–129; Puero Rico and, 28; Venezuela and, 120; Uruguay, corruption measures, 122, 125, 129, 159, 162, 165–166 Venezuela, 12, 76, 77, 80, 131; anticorruption policies, Maduro, 106–110; corruption measures, 122, 159, 162, 165–166; officials arrested abroad, 80, 120; political use of anticorruption, 176; presidential terms, 77, 128–129 victimization of corruption. See participation in corruption. Vizcarra, Martín (Peru) 183–184

weaponizing anticorruption (lawfare), 13, 173, 176, 183, 186 Weberian ideal of bureaucracy, 23 whistleblower protections, 83, 88, 120, 209, in Meixco, 64, 95, 118 Wittgensteinian perspective, 196, 203 World Bank 13, 22, 25. World Economic Forum, 13, 51. See Global Competitiveness Report World Justice Institute. See Limits on Government Index and Rule of Law Index Worldwide Governance Indicators. See Control of Corruption and Rule of Law Index. Workers Party (PT) (Brazil), 59–60, 73, 84, 86–88, 118, 128, 174, 177– 178

About the Book

WHILE THERE IS ARGUABLY UNIVERSAL AGREEMENT THAT corruption plagues countries worldwide, do we agree as well on what corruption is and how to fight it? Do the left and right on the political spectrum hold conflicting views on the issue? Is there a difference in how successful left vs. right governments are in curbing corruption? These are the questions that inspired The Corruption Debates. Stephen Morris explores left and right anticorruption ideologies broadly, then turns to promises, policies, and outcomes in the Americas. He also reaches beyond differences rooted in left/right dichotomies to develop an alternative hypothesis, one reflecting an in-power vs. out-of-power dynamic. His book captures the inherently political nature of not only corruption, but, equally, our understanding of it.

Stephen D. Morris is researcher and interim coordinator (2019–2021) in the Laboratory for Documentation and Analysis of Corruption and Transparency, National Autonomous University of Mexico, and professor of political science and international relations at Middle Tennessee State University. He is also adjoint professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University.

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