THE DATA OF CORRUPTION IN BRAZIL ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL INDICATORS
Brazil has scored particularly badly in some perception-based corruption indiÂcators such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and World Bank’s Control of Corruption (CC).
Their low numbers contrast with the country’s fairly well-positioned web of accountability and oversight institutions,[926] whose legal frameworks, independence and powers should in principle put Brazil in a better position in comparative perspective,[927] despite some setbacks in the last few years[928] and the still high levels of impunity.[929] Brazilian democracy is young but has experienced a gradual self-correcting and self-sustaining process of institutional consolidation and has also achieved a �broad societal consensus that corruption - and especially political corruption - is a major problem’.12 A fairly consistent web of accountability and oversight institutions and a general awareness that fighting corruption should be in the national agenda are obviously positive signs for the rule of law. Moreover, if such institutions have increasingly made individuals accountable for their corrupt practices, like the Odebrecht example, and, more broadly, �Operation Car Wash’, there should be some explanation why Brazil is ranked among the most corrupt countries in South America according to those indicators.Since 2012, when Transparency International CPI started adopting a new methodology, Brazil has scored merely around 40 out of 100 (100 denoting the most non corrupt). In 2017, 2018 and 2019 this figure dropped to 35, rising to 38 in 2020 and 2021. It is currently ranked 96 among 180 countries, and, in South America, it ties with Argentina and only fares better than Peru (36), Ecuador (36), Bolivia (30), Paraguay (30) and Venezuela (14):13 countries which are either the poorest in the region or authoritarian.
World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicator (100 also denoting the highest rank), in which its Control of Corruption is one marker, has presented more positive results, but the most recent corrupÂtion scandals and political crises have driven its Control of Corruption (56.46 in 2009; 43.75 in 2020) and Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism (51.18 in 2009; 32.08 in 2020), and â€?Government Effectiveness’ (51.67 in 2009; 36.54 in 2020) indexes into a slump. Its other markers have also declined in a decade, but not as significantly: Brazil’s numbers are now mostly below average in Latin America and the Caribbean: â€?Voice and Accountability’ (62.56 in 2009; 56.52 in 2020), â€?Regulatory Quality’ (54.55 in 2009; 46.15 in 2020), and â€?Rule of Law’ (50.71 in 2009; 48.08 in 2020). Its Control of Corruption index is currently way below the indicators of Uruguay (89.42), Chile (84.13), and slightly below Argentina (50.00) and Colombia (47.60).14According to the Transparency International’s CPI, such a low score derives from a series of attacks on Brazil’s oversight and anti-corruption frameworks during the Bolsonaro administration. In its 2019 report, it highlighted a set of events showing a growing interference with accountability institutions - particularly the Federal Police and the Public Ministry (through the Attorney-General of the Republic’s office) - some Supreme Court decisions,15
TJ Power and MM Taylor (eds), Corruption and Democracy in Brazil: The Struggle for Accountability (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011).
12T Power and MM Taylor, �Conclusion: The Web of Accountability Institutions in Brazil’ in Power and Taylor (n 11) 273.
13 Transparency International, Corruption Perception Index 2021 (Transparency International, 2021) www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021.
14 World Bank, World Banks Worldwide Governance Indicators, https://info.worldbank.org/ governance/wgi/.
15 Transparency International, Corruption Perception Index 2019 (Transparency International, 2020) 4.
and President Bolsonaro’s continuous attacks on civil organisations, the media and institutions more broadly.[930] Interestingly enough, Word Bank’s CC pointed out an increase of more than 5 points for Brazil from 2017 to 2020, although, like Transparency International’s CPI, its methodology is also largely based upon surveys by experts, non-governmental institutions and private and public sectors.[931]
Even before updating Transparency International’s CPI’s methodology in 2012, Brazil also scored around 40, if not 30 (as in the 2000s). The World Bank’s CC had a slightly more positive assessment of Brazil’s control of corrupÂtion, grading it around 50-60 until 2013, then dropping the score to around 40 in the following years. Such a fall coincides with the rise of popular protests, the growing dissatisfaction with the political environment, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President. It also coincides with corruption scandals, particularly â€?Operation Car Wash’, includÂing the Odebrecht case.
Such indicators are mostly based on experts’ institutional and organisational responses. When compared with other perceptions-based and experience-based indexes, there are some important contrasts. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2019, whose data are collected from everyday people’s perceptions and experiences, points out that 54 per cent of Brazilians think that corruption increased in the country in the last 12 months (a drop from 2017, when 78 per cent thought so), and 90 per cent answered that corruption is a big problem. Curiously, however, Brazilians have a more positive viewpoint when it comes to the institutional response to corruption: 48 per cent of Brazilians responded that the government has performed well in tackling corruption - an improvement from 2017, when only 35 per cent answered in this way.
Moreover, Brazilians feel they are less affected by corruption than most countries in the region: only 11 per cent answered that they had any experience with bribery for basic services[932] - just below Costa Rica (7 per cent).[933] Interestingly, Brazilians feel more optimistic than is average for the region (82 per cent v 77 per cent) as regards their capacity for making a difference in fighting corruption.[934]Brazil also scores fairly well in some markers of corporate integrity. Transparency International Brazil joined efforts with the Getulio Vargas Foundation to assess integrity in the corporate sector and its connections with the public sector and civil society.[935] Based on key publications in the field and experts’
The Data of Corruption in Brazil According to International Indicators 151 surveys, it concluded that Brazil features a web of accountability institutions and a legal framework that is quite suitable for carrying out investigations and has improved over the years, such as the vast investigative powers of the Federal Police, the Public Ministry, the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (among others) and the Anti-Corruption (or Clean Company) Act.[936] Among the indicators of efficiency in preventing, detecting and punishing corruption, on a scale from 0 to 100 (100 denoting excellence), Brazil scores well in â€?prohibition of bribery by public servants’ (75) and â€?prohibition of cartels’ (83.3); fairly well in â€?prohibition of money laundering’ (66.6), â€?accountability, audit and transÂparency’ (62.5), and â€?public procurement’ (62.5); fairly badly in â€?prohibition of improper influence’ (45.8); and badly in protecting whistle-blowers (12.5).[937] Despite the less robust numbers in some markers, Brazilian institutions have been deemed quite efficient when it comes to preventing corruption in foreign relations. According to Transparency International’s â€?Exporting Corruption Progress Report 2020’, among the 47 countries examined comprising 83 per cent of the global exports, Brazil is classified among the â€?Moderate Enforcement’ countries, along with Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Sweden, Portugal and Spain.
It is one of the few countries that have â€?moderately [enforced] against companies that pay bribes abroad’,[938] and provide â€?considerable amount of inforÂmation in online databases about pending and concluded cases’,[939] though some leniency agreements such as those of â€?Operation Car Wash’ â€?are only partially accessible to the public’.[940]What these last indicators show as being more problematic are data on the corporate world itself and the engagement of civil society against corrupÂtion in the private sector. Most markers related to the corporate mechanisms of self-governance and social monitoring of the private sector are less robust than those also involving the public sector. Transparency International’s â€?Integrity and Companies in Brazil’[941] reveals that Brazilian companies score poorly in some key markers of self-governance (100 denoting excellence), such as compliance (56.2), audit and certification (50), transparency and release of anti-corruption information (37.5), independence of the media from the private sector (25) and social monitoring of the private sector (25), for example.[942] Indeed, the Brazilian corporate sector seems to be a glass halfÂfull or glass half-empty when it comes to preventing corruption, and, with the exception of anti-cartel enforcement, private corruption with no direct
participation of the public sector has been left under the radar by Congress. Another interesting study by Transparency International Brazil revealed that, among the Brazilian top 100 companies and top 10 banks, 65 per cent of them publicise anti-corruption programmes, and 48 per cent make public their organisational structure, but only 3 per cent of those with international ramiÂfications (54 companies) publicise their reports by country (below the average of emerging markets of 9 per cent).[943]
These distinct indicators, some from the same organisation through distinct methodologies, reveal that, on the one hand, there is a clear perception that corruption is a serious issue for the rule of law in Brazil.
On the other hand, there is a high awareness of the existence of corruption among Brazilians and the potential for civil engagement in fighting it, though targeting more specifiÂcally the private-public relationships than the private sector’s own practices. Institutional mechanisms to combat corruption exist, are fairly consistent, and have highly improved over the years, but fail to punish crimes, even though some large-scale corruption cases, such as â€?Operation Car Wash’, have led to punishÂment of bigwigs in politics and in the business sector.Overall, however, there are some striking contrasts among such indicators, thereby revealing the difficulties in such types of assessments. There are imporÂtant variations in relation to trends - for example, the more negative results of Transparency International’s CPI versus the more positive results of the World Bank’s CC in the last three years - some remarkable gaps between experts’ and general perceptions, and some disconnection between perceptions and personal experiences and objective data. They reveal key information about how corrupÂtion impacts the reality, but they inevitably suffer from behavioural factors such as biases and limited information and are particularly influenced by how those large-scale corruption scandals and investigations are framed by the media. The correlation between a higher perception of corruption and increasing antiÂcorruption task forces regularly broadcast on the media is well-documented. In the circumstance of a young democracy, such an effect has proven even greater.[944] On the other hand, it is also known that young democracies need some time before experiencing self-enforcing and self-improving mechanisms to combat corruption. As Timothy Power and Matthew Taylor point out, â€?Brazil’s demoÂcratic accountability institutions have required time to settle into place, to learn how to work on their own and then jointly, and to find ways of cooperating to develop corrective improvements.’[945]
Therefore, even though those indicators - and especially those perceptionÂbased indicators - matter and provide some relevant information, they fail particularly in assessing political variables and behavioural biases in their analyses. Brazil has serious problems of corruption, for sure, but it certainly strikes any observer as odd that, for example, for Transparency International’s CPI and World Bank’s CC, countries that are both non- democratic and whose press is highly constrained, score better than young democracies whose press is much freer, and therefore can regularly report cases of corruption. For example, for Transparency International’s CPI and World Bank’s CC, Brazil is behind - sometimes way behind - countries such as UAE, Qatar, Cuba, Belarus or China, all non-democracies with limited press freedom. Such a lack of control of behavioural effects and the disregard of political variables lead to the conclusion that surveys should be taken with a pinch of salt and be regarded as just one source whose numbers, especially for young democracies combatting more openly corruption, may fail to provide an accurate depiction of the reality.[946]
III.