Corruption Investigations, Politicization, and Institutional Crises? A Comparative Politics, Policy, and Law Approach

Foreign agencies have been more actively sharing the resource burden of global investigations. In December 2016, Brazilian firms agreed to pay a record-setting penalty of over $3.5 billion to resolve a bribery case involving American, Brazilian and Swiss authorities. While it is difficult to deny the success of anti-corruption efforts represented by national and global corruption investigations, it is at the same time easy to realize that when such investigations involve significant politicians, several interest groups engage in an advocacy work consisting on politicizing a technical and complex issue, involving not only the Executive, but also the Judiciary and Legislative Branches. What is the role of mainstream/social media, fake news, prosecutors, and judges in such politicization of corruption investigations, and how all these players can influence the electorate in contexts of institutional crises and change political landscapes? This paper addresses these issues in the countries involved in the Car Wash/Jet Wash/“Lava Jato” case based on investigations derived from the aforementioned agreement before the U.S. DOJ, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland – OAG, and the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecution Office – MPF (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela) in a comparative exercise with the aim of contributing to policy and legal decisions that could prevent politicization from affecting the corruption investigations, and at least mitigate the effects of such politicization over other fundamental (democratic) institutions. Finally, 5 years after the agreement, it seems important to analyze the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) decisions that have addressed the allegations that the Car Wash/Jet Wash/“Lava Jato” investigations were politicized. As the Car Wash did influence other investigations in Latin America, it is expected that case law analyses about the STF trade-offs between anti-corruption measures and due process of law can be a contribution to comparative legal policy-oriented literature.