Factors that Influence the Acceptance of Corruption in Brazil

• In Event: Corruption and Accountability in Latin America

Abstract

For Brazilians, corruption remains a major public issue (IBOPE 2015; IPSOS 2016) despite of the implementation of nationwide anticorruption efforts over the last decades (Power and Taylor 2011; Praça 2015). Moreover, Brazil leads Latin American rankings in terms of the public rejecting practices and values related to corruption (LAPOP 2017; Latinobarometro 2018). Thus, what factors may lead its citizens to accept corruption, considering how intolerant they seem to be towards this issue? Through a survey analysis of two of recently published public opinion polls in Latin America (LAPOP 2017; Latinobarometro 2018), I evaluate the extent to which interpretations that rely on cultural and moral values, asymmetry of information, levels of social and interpersonal trust and socio-economic and demographic variables are able to explain the resilience of tolerant behavior toward corruption. Findings suggest that prevailing explanatory factors to predict pro-corrupt attitudes vary depending on the definition of the corrupt behavior at stake. Further, citizens who trust institutions that are either distrusted or regarded by most of the population as corrupt are also more prone to accept corrupt, but efficient governments. Factors such as anti-democratic attitudes, higher levels of income, lower rates of contextual development and higher inequality are also positively related to most definitions of the outcome of interest. This research thus adds to ongoing scholarship that emphasizes the roles of economic and moral factors in interpreting pro-corrupt behavior, while presenting new evidence indicating positive associations involving confidence in institutions and in the status quo and acceptance of corruption.

Author

• Sergio Roberto G Reis, UCLA