The Causes, Costs, and Pursuit of Corruption in Latin America

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Public anger over corruption is widespread in Latin America. It spilled out in street protests in several countries this past fall and can be seen in polls showing increased distrust of elected politicians and democracy itself. Public concern has gone hand and hand with an unprecedented legal offensive against corruption. Crackdowns have been led by special prosecutors and judges, and new legal tools have been deployed. This panel brings together new empirical research on the causes, costs, and institutional responses to corruption across Latin America. Baragwanath traces the roots of local corruption to how oil windfalls encourage lower-quality politicians to enter politics and engage in corrupt behavior in Brazil. Nichter et al. examine the overlooked toll of corruption on public health and estimate the effects of public audits to reduce corruption on child mortality. Holland then compares attempts to prevent corruption in infrastructure projects before it occurs in Colombia and Peru, and their varied success at the national and subnational level. González-Ocantos then turns to how anti-corruption investigations unfold, and the tensions between public demands for justice and the need for leniency to secure evidence in Peru. Together, the panel sheds light on how corruption is tainting multiple levels of politics, imposing costs across society, and challenging democracies to respond with new legal and institutional tools. It also illustrates how varied methodological tools, from qualitative process-tracing to natural experiments and administrative data, can be used to study a difficult-to-measure phenomena like corruption.

Sub Unit

• Division 12: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Individual Presentations

• Negotiating with Corruptors: Peruvian Prosecutors’ Quest for Evidence - Ezequiel Alejo Gonzalez Ocantos, University of Oxford

• Corruption and Child Mortality: Evidence from Random Audits in Brazil - Simeon C. Nichter, University of California, San Diego; Antonio Pedro Ramos, UCLA

• The Effect of Oil Windfalls on Corruption in Brazil - Kathryn Baragwanath

• The Politics of Inhibition: Theory and Evidence from Transportation Projects - Alisha Caroline Holland, Harvard University

Chair

• Manuel Balan McGill University

Discussant

• Matthew S. Winters University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign