Accountability, Corruption and Local Government: Mapping the Control Steps

Abstract

The central purpose of this paper is to map out the Brazilian web of accountability institutions and observe how institutions establish links with each other in order to control corruption cases that reach them. Focus is on institutions that are part of the Brazilian anti-corruption agenda, which include the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, 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 institutional improvements, the result produced by this web in terms of coordination is still weak. This article tests this claim by looking at the program called 'Inspections from Public Lotteries'. Through a longitudinal approach, I observed the flux of control activities among the institutions, especially the establishment of investigative and judicial proceedings. Not only I explored the extent to which corruption impacts the establishment of interactions, but I also investigated how the interactions affect the speed of judicial proceedings -using logistic regressions and survival analysis. The conclusion is that the Brazilian web is able to articulate itself in order to hold public officials accountable (something new in this recent democracy), but not in a homogeneous way across all institutions (something the literature has missed). Furthermore, I demonstrate that the entire web of accountability institutions is unable to arrive at a decision in a timely manner.

A difícil construção da accountability pública perante os tribunais de contas brasileiros

“…Defende-se que o uso dessas prerrogativas é capaz de diminuir a corrupção e aproximar o Estado da sociedade civil (Lindstedt & Naurin, 2016, Aranha, 2017, Brusca, Rossi, Aversano, 2018.…”

“…Os três atributos analisados são bastante referenciados na Administração Pública moderna, notadamente, à accountability a quem a literatura nacional e internacional dedica consistentes estudos que enfatizam a importância dela na promoção da democracia, aumento da transparência, combate à corrupção etc. (Lindstedt & Naurin, 2016, Aranha, 2017, Olsen, 2018, Brusca et al, 2018, Rocha et al, 2020. Em âmbito nacional, o tema assumiu conotação legal (CF 1988, art.…”

Gap in Service Delivery in the Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality: Prospects and Challenges

“…Corruption in local government results in poor planning for local resources, for example, water, housing, and roads (Masters and Graycar, 2016: 43). Corruption is also observed as the main reason governments fail to perform mandated functions for the constituents (Aranha, 2017). A high number of cases of corruption in a municipality may result in enormous disparity in the delivery of services.…”

Corruption research: A need for an integrated approach

“…Political and administrative explanations of corruption highlight such factors as a government’s administrative efficiency, the nature and degree of political competition in the country, the government’s scope, interactions between elected politicians and government bureaucrats, and public–private interactions. We need to understand whether the political parties are institutionally separate from the government’s public administration arrangements (Heywood, 1997; Krylova, 2018); the degree of accountability, competition, and openness in the public domain; the extent of actual rivalry among the country’s authority centers (Della Porta and Vannucci, 2016; Kim and Sharman, 2014); and how long the government has been in power (Aranha, 2017; LaPalombara, 1995).…”