Legislative Backlash: how brazil's national congress is undermining anticorruption reforms

Abstract

How Congressmen Manipulate Legislative Tools to Reverse Anti-Corruption Reforms? This paper describes how some recent votes by legislators in the Brazilian National Congress contribute to reversing advances in the fight against corruption. These votes are made through agreements among politicians from all ideological spectrums, rendering the legislation aimed at combating corruption vague. Documents from legislative houses and the press were collected and analyzed for this purpose. The evidence supports the hypothesis that the rules created to protect democracy, promote accountability, and ensure public integrity are actually used by Brazilian politicians to shield corrupt transactions, reverse the results achieved by anti-corruption reforms, and maintain the political power structure. Through the analysis of the Brazilian case, we highlight the importance of anti-corruption reforms in improving oversight over political parties. We also emphasize that, without adequate oversight, political parties can play a critical role in enabling systemic political corruption, which particularly threatens countries in the Global South.