A formação do regime internacional anticorrupção e os (des)caminhos da Operação Lava Jato no Brasil

Abstract

This work deals with the formation of an international anti-corruption regime, its internalization in Brazil, and its influence on “Operação Lava Jato”. We understand that the formation of this regime was motivated by commercial and geopolitical considerations of the actor responsible for its creation, the US government. More specifically, it was motivated by concerns related to the global competitiveness of US companies due to the approval of a rule that prohibited the payment of transnational bribes, the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA). The regime was created in the 1990s, in a context of unipolarity, and Brazil adhered to it, internalizing its precepts. Such internalization was anchored in an anti-corruption agenda assumed by the PT governments, but it was led by members of the bureaucracy linked to the fight against corruption. These bureaucrats were part of transnational networks for the dissemination of public policies, with little oversight of politicians. The transformations arising from this internalization, associated with preexisting trends in the country, strengthened the accountability network, contributing to the autonomy of the institutions that make up this network. We understand that the political crisis of Dilma Rousseff's government – a conjunctural factor – opened a window of opportunity for such actors in the accountability network to mobilize their capabilities to interfere in the political game. In this context, these actors took up the anti-corruption banner, a banner historically used in Brazil in the context of political party disputes, but which was captured by actors who are part of the accountability network and, more specifically, by actors in the justice system. We understand that this analysis at two levels – domestic and international – can contribute to an understanding of the interweaving between the political instrumentalization of anti-corruption at the domestic level and its instrumentalization at the international level.