Protecting My Friends: Corruption Networks in Mexico

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries I

Abstract

“El que no tranza, no avanza” is a common colloquial phrase that describes the traditional approach to corruption in Mexico. It roughly translates to he who does not cheat, does not progress and demonstrates how ingrained corruption is into the Mexican psyche. Over the past 25 years, various reforms have been implemented to prevent and prosecute corruption following a growing sentiment of repulsion towards it. Transparency International has found that over the past 22 years corruption has become an endemic problem in Mexico and as such their ranking of Mexican corruption has catapulted towards the top of its list (Transparency International, 2018). As the problem of corruption has become a more salient issue, the number of corruption investigations, probes, and prosecutions have not corresponded. Given corruption is a continuous problem in Mexico, what explains the lack of corruption probes in a corrupt country? This paper uses newspaper articles and natural language processing to construct a database on corruption accusations and investigations for all 32 states in Mexico. State level auditors are nominated by governors and confirmed by state legislatures, this institutional structure may enable cronyism in auditor appointments. To asses this, it employs a stochastic actor-based model to test the network dynamics of the hypotheses that same party governors will avoid investigating same party mayors, and alternatively, governors will target different party mayors with corruption audits. If these hypotheses are supported, these findings would be important for policy-makers interested in reforming the fiscal audit and prosecutorial institutions in Mexico to prevent cronyism in the appointment of auditors. This project is a contribution to the literature on corruption in developing democracies. In 2018, the populist candidate won the presidency on a campaign based on tackling corruption but upon assuming office has retracted and promised to not investigate the previous regime. Could the populist regime benefit from the existing institutions by targeting the opposition? Research on how corruption probes operate is essential to exposing and combating future corruption in Mexico and other developing democracies around the world.

Author

• Alejandro Beltran, University of Arizona