Political Corruption in Latin America and Its Regional Effects

Corruption can be found in all forms of governing process and this issue can be discussed with a reference to the particular historical setting. In broad terms, political corruption denotes abuse of power for private gain, personal benefits over the public interest, and particularism over universalism. We will try to examine how the personal benefits over the public interest can occur in some political arena. Our hypothesis is that corruption can be termed a systemic problem which affect the function of the system and the core of the governing process. Odebrecht, this Brazilian construction company, has already brought many Latin American ex presidents or high rank government officials down. By analyzing the Odebrecht scandal happened in several Latin American countries, we would like to discuss what is the relationship between the social foundation of this corruption scandal, as well as the elites' linkages. Odebrecht scandal involved corruption issue and political change has became a regional phenomenon, we will try to look through agent-based approach to understand the original problems and puzzles of democratic practice in Latin American countries; also, the main focus of this work will be how presidents put the superpresidentialism into practice and their way to delivery public goods or not to offer any public good. We seek to find a mechanism that can explain why the Odebrecht scandal would cost that much and involved a big amount of politicians. Further, it is important to examine to what extent the ‘corruption eruption’ reflects authentic anger against governments, and that research on corruption does not become mobilized as part of an organized project of ‘dismantling the state step by step’. A proper understanding of political corruption will help us to identify—and to reject—questionable strategies and reforms that masquerade as being about ‘anti-corruption’ when in fact they are designed to mask alternative agendas.

mengqi yuan /TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY