A rede brasileira de instituições de accountability: um mapa do enfrentamento da corrupção na esfera local

Abstract

The central purpose of this thesis is to map out the Brazilian web of accountability institutions how these institutions establish links with each other in order to control and sanction the cases of corruption that reach them. Particular focus is on the institutions that are at the centerof an anti-corruption agenda, including the Federal Public Prosecution, the Federal Police, the Office of the Comptroller General, the Federal Court of Accounts, the Federal Justice and the Ministries. In the literature, the most widespread argument is that despite recent institutionalimprovements, the final result of this web in terms of interaction and coordination is still weak. In order to check the present situation, the study tests these claims by looking at the program called Inspections of Public Lotteries, which targets the federal funds transferred to municipalities. Given that this program brings irregularities to the public sphere, we askwhether investigative or judicial proceedings are established in the other institutions that compose the web of accountability. We observe the flux of control activities among the institutions until they reach the Judiciary and become an action that aims at judicial sanction. This overview has the objective of telling two stories. The first describes if and how theseinstitutions interact as a result of the lottery program, following the trajectory of the irregularities over time from a longitudinal perspective. In addition, we analyze semistructured interviews with key actors of the institutions studied. In the second story, we explore possible causal mechanisms involved in both the moment prior to interactions (suchas factors impacting the establishment of such interactions) and in a later moment (such as how quickly or slowly the interactions affect the speed of the proceedings). In both stories, the predominant logic is the one of mixing methods, bringing together statistical and processtracingapproaches. We conclude that the web is able to coordinate and articulate itself in order to control and hold the public officials accountable, but not in a homogeneous way across all institutions. In the quantitative descriptive stage, we find numerous investigativeproceedings initiated by the Public Prosecution, some by the Ministries and a few by the Court of Accounts, with the latter being a little more active in fighting corruption. The investigation phases prevail over others, with a few cases arriving at the Judicial Courts, and the ones that do suffer from delayed proceedings. From a qualitative point of view, we showhow the interactions occur mainly between the Public Prosecution (MPF) and the Comptroller (CGU) and between the latter and the Federal Police (PF). The Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) is portrayed as a remote institution that prefers interactions with local institutions andfocuses on governance. Lastly, the causal inferences reveal that while corruption may be important in the institutions decisions to interact as indicated by the results from the logistic regressions corruption is not important enough to expedite the progress of the cases and, when it has a significant impact, it leads to slower processes as indicated by the results of the survival analysis. Furthermore, the interactions are fundamental to expedite the arrival of the processes at the final stage of accountability, but do not contribute to faster sentencing.The theoretical perspective emphasizes that in order to hold officials accountable for their actions, managing to make them responsible for the exclusions that they may cause (such as corruption actions), the web of accountability institutions fulfill an important role of reinforcing and empowering democracy and its basic inclusive condition.