Brazilian Politics on Trial is essential reading for those who seek to understand the politics of corruption and anti-corruption, as well as Brazil's corresponding successes and failures in this realm. Luciano Da Ros and Matthew Taylor give particular attention to systemic causes of corruption and impunity, as well as to the rise and fall of the largest corruption scandal in history, the Lava Jato (‘Car Wash’) case. Two mutually reinforcing messages stand out in Brazilian Politics on Trial, the first, a preference for ‘incremental’ versus ‘big-push’ approaches to addressing corruption; and the second, on factors that fuel Brazil's enduring struggle with corruption and impunity.
Anyone familiar with Taylor's work over the last decades will recognise the message that incremental approaches to anti-corruption trump those that favour ‘big pushes’. Incremental gains in the capacity to combat corruption have mostly germinated within the state, often the product of inter-ministerial initiatives for fighting corruption, such as the Estratégia Nacional de Combate à Corrupção e à Lavagem de Dinheiro (National Strategy for Fighting Corruption and Money-Laundering, ENCCLA). Ironically, those presidents who encouraged or acquiesced to these anti-corruption initiatives were also those who suffered most from them, namely Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) and Dilma Rousseff, both of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT). While Lula strengthened key institutions such as the federal police and the judiciary, Rousseff passed critical transparency and anti-corruption legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Law (no. 12.527, 2012), plea-bargaining provisions via an anti-corruption law (no. 12.846, 2013) and anti-racketeering legislation (no. 12.850, 2013).
Taylor and Da Ros’ empirical analysis focuses mainly on failed anti-corruption cases – the scandals referred to as Banestado (i.e. the Banco do Estado do Paraná; 1996–2003), Satiagraha (‘the force of truth’, the term popularised by Mahatma Gandhi; 2004–11) and Castelo de Areia (‘Sandcastle’; 2009–11). The authors note the importance of not selecting cases based on the dependent variable – i.e. successfully prosecuted corruption cases. However, in almost every country in Latin America – indeed in most countries – it could hardly be otherwise; failed corruption investigations abound. Importantly, Da Ros and Taylor also examine qualified victories, namely the Mensalão (‘Monthly Salary’; 2005–12) and Lava Jato (2014–20) scandals. Anti-corruption investigations in Brazil came to a head with the Lava Jato, with gains from incremental reforms giving way to a big-push approach that ultimately pushed too far – paradoxically forcing Brazilian accountability into reverse. Da Ros and Taylor astutely enumerate how the Lava Jato prosecutors and judges attempted at once to forestall a backlash while unwittingly provoking one. The result of Brazil's recent backwards movement is a new administrative improbity law (no. 14.230, 2021) – which now requires clear proof of intent – several laws to curb the powers of prosecutors and judges – including Abuse of Authority (no. 13.869, 2019) and Anti-crime (no. 13.964, 2019) laws – as well as a reform to the libel law (no. 14.110, 2020) to make investigators think twice before probing ‘innocent’ subjects. These laws, among others, form part of the most sweeping backwards movement in accountability and anti-corruption hitherto contemplated during Brazil's modern democratic period. The book provides a new contribution to the literature and does an excellent job of detailing pushback resulting from the Lava Jato.
Whereas the first message of Brazilian Politics on Trial has to do with the error of a ‘big-push approach’, the second delineates factors responsible for the baffling persistence of high-level corruption and impunity in Brazil. As with advice on incrementalism, this message also contains familiar and sensible answers, elements of which appear in Taylor's excellent recent book, Decadent Developmentalism (Cambridge University Press, 2020). The pathologies of corruption in Brazil are a symptom of what Taylor and Da Ros refer to as the ‘perilous combination’, a trident tipped with Brazil's unique brand of coalitional presidentialism, its developmental state and ‘loose’ campaign finance (p. 10). The symbiotic relationship between these three elements fuels corruption in undeniable ways. Special blame is reserved for Brazil's Congress, which houses the most fragmented party system in the history of the world, by a wide margin. Extreme ‘hyperfragmentation’ (see Cesar Zucco Jr. and Timothy J. Power, ‘Fragmentation without Cleavages? Endogenous Fractionalization in the Brazilian Party System’, Comparative Politics, 53: 3 (2021), pp. 477–500) in the Brazilian Congress reflects extreme incentives for the proliferation of parties-for-rent, pressures for political finance and particularistic demands in return for legislative support. The developmental state provides a front-line means of fulfilling these demands, as gorging on Petrobras under the PT can testify. The result is what Da Ros and Taylor refer to as ‘multiparty collusion’ (p. 42). Curiously, many Brazilian political scientists are still reluctant to accept the argument that Brazil's presidential coalitional system represents the fountainhead of its governance woes.
Taylor and Da Ros view Brazil's Congress and its persistent problems with corruption as reflective of an ‘elite pact’. This term, borrowed from Michael Johnston's seminal work Syndromes of Corruption (Cambridge University Press, 2005), conveys that corruption is not ‘episodic’ but rather systemic, defended by cadres of the business and political elite. Their case is compelling. Indeed, the corruption scandals examined by Da Ros and Taylor illustrate ‘one long, continuous process of state appropriation by corrupt actors’ (p. 21). Many among the cast of kleptocrats, their cronies and state-based collaborators (e.g. judges) appear and reappear, incriminated formally or morally with frightening frequency. The implication of these magic reappearing acts seems to be that impunity is the theatre's unchanging backdrop. Because of an ‘elite pact’, corruption pays. The difficulty is finding a way out of this equilibrium. When anti-corruption victories begin to occur, will the ‘elite pact’ ensure that incremental gains are reversed, as has been occurring over the past years? Does incrementalism even have a chance in the face of an elite pact?
Part of the answer must necessarily reside in those institutions that perpetuate impunity. While investigations of corruption in Brazil have experienced considerable victories over the last decade and half, a fraught judiciary has arguably proven the weakest link in Brazil's chain of accountability. Taylor is among the most renowned experts on Brazilian accountability politics and both he and Da Ros possess far-ranging expertise on judicial politics. Given this expertise, it was somewhat surprising that the authors did not provide a framework to better understand the judiciary's chilling role in sustaining impunity. Just as Taylor and Da Ros advance the argument about ‘the perilous combination’, a framework for explaining high-level corruption, so too might they have developed a framework for the factors which sustain high-level impunity. In handling high-level corruption cases, Brazil's judiciary, which is by far and away the region's most expensive at 1.3 per cent of GDP (p. 69), fails for many reasons, inside and outside of the Supreme Court. In addition to the Supreme Court's inconsistent use of precedent, venal politicking and generous approaches to appeals and habeas corpus, it lacks specialisation in criminal cases and has flip-flopped on the question of whether those found guilty after a first appeal must remain in prison until all appeals are exhausted. But the problem goes far beyond the Supreme Court. It also has to do with the two-tiered system of corruption trials, which is abused by officials who resign from office just before their cases are heard by the Supreme Court as a means of restarting trials in lower courts (pp. 69–70), winding down the clock and ultimately having cases thrown out by reference to the statute of limitations. Moreover, Brazil's constitution and judicial rules give defendants seemingly infinite opportunities for appeal (p. 135) and writs of habeas corpus – if they can pay for them (another reason to embezzle more rather than less). In short, it is as difficult as it is essential to encapsulate the impunity-fomenting role of the Brazilian judiciary in a theoretical framework.
Overall, Da Ros and Taylor's fine work is in many ways the culmination of what we know about efforts to combat corruption in Brazil and is essential reading for anyone interested in good governance more generally.
