The Political Functionality of the Fight against Corruption in the Lava Jato Era
The Lava Jato case provides a compelling setting for analysing the promises and perils of the fight against corruption. This scandal certainly laid bare the murky system of party finance, politics and infrastructure kickbacks in Latin America and beyond. It presents an exemplary use of punitive actions by prosecuting corrupt politicians and business leaders – frying the ‘biggest fish’ – which reveal that malfeasances are being sanctioned, and thus reducing impunity. However, evidence suggests that holding corrupt elites accountable may have unforeseen consequences. Contrary to efforts in established liberal democracies, the results on expected lower accounts of corruption and long-lasting reforms of government branches and legislation are nuanced in younger democracies. There is a myriad of factors such as political framing of prosecutions, media ownership, relative tolerance, political affiliation, the celebrity of members of task forces among others. The risks of delegitimised and politicised anti-corruption crusades are greater, thus, having negative effects beyond evident progress. By providing evidence of the Peruvian case – which acted promptly and most efficiently launching a national referendum, removing politically-motivated members of the judiciary and indicting four former presidents, the leader of the opposition party and various businesspeople – I argue that the political functionality of investigations hinders the overall legitimacy of the fight against corruption. This kind of crusade could reach a sort of ‘tipping point’ in which cynical attitudes and the perceived abuse of punitive populism may undermine vertical accountability, and eventually lead to electing populist candidates such as Berlusconi after Mani Pulite or Bolsonaro during Lava Jato. This paper draws upon multimethod approach with primary (focus groups) and secondary data (opinion surveys) from Peru and Brazil. This paper critically examines the unintended consequences of Lava Jato while shedding light on the ownership and instrumentality of anti-corruption in order to further understand how elements of public opinion, public administration and legislation interplay in this ever-changing setting. Understanding the politics behind these anti-corruption actions is key for theory-advancing and public policy purposes.