Brazil & Pizza

Ending Up in Pizza:
Accountability as a Problem
of Institutional Arrangement in Brazil
Matthew M. Taylor
Vinícius C. Buranelli
ABSTRACT
Brazilians often complain that investigations of corruption by public

servants drag on for years or bring few legal sanctions on the per-
petrators. This lack of accountability is so pervasive that a slang
phrase, acabou em pizza, is often invoked when investigations are
inconclusive. This article investigates the role of four Brazilian
public institutions charged with keeping public servants account-
able. For analysis, it breaks the accountability process into its three
component stages: oversight, investigation, and sanction. Through
a study of six prominent cases of corruption, it shows that the
weakness of the accountability process in Brazil is due not entirely
to the toothlessness of individual institutions of accountability, but
also to the independence of such institutions at each of the three
stages. These findings suggest that institutional arrangements influ-
ence the degree of accountability, and thereby also public trust and
confidence, in Latin America’s largest democracy.
It is necessary for mechanisms to exist that are more efficient in the

investigation [of corruption] and [for] the people involved
[to be] condemned.
—President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 2003
B razilians often invoke the slang phrase acabou em pizza, literally “it
ended up in pizza,” when a process results in few tangible results
after a lengthy delay. In recent years, press reports have frequently used
the term to describe the investigations of prominent corruption scandals,
as inquiries by the congress or prosecutors dragged on interminably
with little to show for their efforts. Public protests have used pizzas as
a powerful prop; one typical student protest in 2001 culminated in the
burning of a four-meter-wide cardboard version. Pizzas were an impor-
tant symbol for Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in his successful 2002 bid for
the presidency (Folha de São Paulo 2001b, c, e).
Perceptions of corruption place Brazil among the second third of
countries in the world; that is, not the most corrupt by any stretch.1 But
the perception that the law is applied weakly is widespread, and Brazil-
59
60 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 1
ians judge compliance with the law in their country to be lower than
most of the rest of Latin America (Latinobarómetro 2004). A recent poll
found that corruption was citizens’ biggest embarrassment about being
Brazilian, ahead of the country’s violence and poverty (Estado de São
Paulo 2005c).
Corruption is a recurring political issue in Brazil. Large scandals
have erupted over the course of each of the postdemocratic presiden-
cies. José Sarney faced a congressional inquiry that found endemic cor-
ruption in his administration; Fernando Collor was famously impeached
for corruption; Itamar Franco’s government saw an enormous scandal
regarding the congressional budget committee’s misappropriation of
funds; and the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration faced allega-
tions of vote buying to ensure passage of a constitutional amendment
permitting re-election, among other scandals.
In 2005, as this article was being written, Lula’s government and his
Workers’ Party (PT) were also rocked by a huge financing scandal.
Funds allegedly were diverted—either through illicit campaign contri-
butions or through phony public contracts, it is not clear which—to pay
the PT’s campaign costs and “reward” congressional allies. The allega-
tions led to a proliferation of congressional investigations, captured
enormous media coverage (most comically when one PT member was
arrested at the airport with one hundred thousand U.S. dollars stashed
in his pants), and contributed to the rapid resignation of Lula’s influen-
tial chief of staff, the president of the Workers’ Party (PT), and a number
of other top officials.
This scandal, affecting a party that until recently was widely per-
ceived as one of the most ethical in Brazil, has resurrected perennial con-
cerns about the impact of corruption in Latin America’s largest democ-
racy. One concern is how to address corruption without undermining
faith in the democratic process. A not uncommon sequence following
allegations of political corruption is a flurry of accusations and counter-
accusations that do nothing to improve faith in the political system, and
are seldom effectively resolved in a timely fashion. While there is ample
consensus that corruption left unchecked hurts state capacity, under-
mines effective policy implementation, and weakens economic growth
(see, e.g., Bailey and Valenzuela 1997; Mauro 1995; Kaufmann et al.
1999), a poorly designed accountability process may contribute little to
actually fighting corruption and may occasionally undermine, rather than
strengthen, confidence in democratic institutions.
A second concern is that the constant scandals of the past 20 years
have decreased the effectiveness of democratic policymaking by gum-
ming up the works. Not only does the reform agenda stall whenever
congressional investigations are ongoing, but the Lula government, in its
attempt to shore up alliances, has emulated its predecessors by trading
TAYLOR AND BURANELLI: ACCOUNTABILITY IN BRAZIL 61
ministries for tenuous partisan support. As Geddes and Ribeiro Neto

presciently noted in 1992, changes to the political system in the 1988
Constitution “increased the likelihood of corruption, by decreasing the
ability of the executive to (i) build coalitions, and (ii) assure the loyalty
of his or her supporters in Congress” (1992, 643). The result is the pur-
suit of other ways to assure political loyalty, often by exchanging gov-
ernment posts for support, and sometimes through less transparent
exchanges. These common political practices dilute the executive
branch’s overall policy coherence and bring many tribulations resulting
from inadequate transparency.
What we see, then, is that corruption and accountability are serious
and recurring problems in Brazil, with significant implications for the
credibility and effectiveness of democratic governance. Why, then, does
everything routinely “end up in pizza”?
This study focuses on the question of accountability in Brazil’s fed-
eral public service, and on how the institutions tasked with controlling
corruption perform at the federal level in Brazil. Through an analysis of
prominent corruption cases, this article hopes to make two contribu-
tions to the literature on accountability that can extend beyond the
Brazilian case. The first is to emphasize the analytical gains that can be
realized from breaking the accountability process into its component
stages of oversight, investigation, and sanctioning, and then tracing how
core responsibilities for each stage are allocated to specific institutional
actors. The second contribution is to illustrate how reasonably well
functioning institutions may nevertheless help to weaken accountability
if their interaction in these three stages is not smoothly calibrated.
In discussing accountability, this study emphasizes midrange
bureaucratic institutions, particularly the structure of four key institutions
of accountability in Brazil. The analysis examines six prominent cases of
allegedly corrupt activities, as well as the interaction between the key
institutional agents in holding principals accountable in those episodes.
ACCOUNTABILITY AS AN INTERACTIVE PROCESS

Drawing on earlier definitions of political accountability (Mainwaring
2003, 7) and political corruption (Heywood 1997, 424), this study
defines accountability as ensuring that governments and their agents act
in a public-regarding manner. But even this minimal definition still
raises a number of practical problems. Who does the ensuring? By what
means do they ensure? What is a public-regarding manner, and who
decides whether the government is or is not acting this way?
A second challenge comes from the number of concepts of account-
ability. Are we concerned with accountability for performance or
accountability for the “public-regardingness” of policy and policy
implementation? This essay focuses largely on the second definition,

although the two concerns often overlap and, on occasion, conflict
(e.g., Behn 2001; Bresser Pereira and Spink 1999).
A third challenge, even when focusing primarily on accountability
for the public-regardedness of policy implementation, is delimiting the
scope of research. It is assumed here that reforms that would signifi-
cantly improve the delays presented by the Brazilian judiciary and prob-
lems of electoral accountability are extremely unlikely in the short term.
This study therefore focuses on an understudied element in the account-
ability equation: institutions of horizontal accountability that occupy the
middle ground between electoral and judicial systems at the federal
level in Brazil. The focus is on how these midlevel institutions of
accountability—bureaucracies whose relationship with citizens is largely
delegated rather than directly responsive through the vote—carry out
their accountability role, and how this role, in turn, influences the
accountability process and its broader effects on Brazilian democracy.
These institutions are the Federal Public Ministry (Ministério Público
Federal, MPF), the Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), the federal
police, and the congressional committee of inquiry (Comissão Parla-
mentar de Inquérito, CPI).2
This study makes two arguments about the accountability role of
these midlevel institutions. Analytically, it argues that accountability
should be conceptualized as a dynamic process, rather than a static state
in which actors are either held accountable or not. Because accounta-
bility is a process, it can be broken down into various component
stages, each of which is marked by different patterns of action and sanc-
tion and by different actors and procedures. These stages can best be
summarized as
1. Oversight of public agents, which has a necessarily ex ante empha-
sis on catching poor performance or malfeasance before it progresses
2. Investigation of allegations against public agents, which is usually
ex post, focusing on uncovering the depth and extent of past malfeasance
3. Sanctioning, or practical accountability holding for acts by public
agents
A key insight is that each of these stages of the accountability
process involves different goals and dimensions of accountability, and as
a result, each stage may lead to different patterns of interaction: between
institutions and society, between electoral and nonelectoral institutions,
and between the institutions involved in each specific stage itself.
The second argument emphasizes the interaction between institu-
tions of accountability across all three stages. The literature on crime,
corruption, and the rule of law in Latin America—which has prompted
much of the interest in accountability in the region—has tended to focus
either on broad systemic conceptualization of the problem (e.g.,
Méndez et al. 1999); on macro-level, cross-national analysis of the prob-

lem (e.g., Bohara et al. 2004); or on institution-specific analyses of the
problem (e.g., Hammergren 1998 on the courts; Sadek and Castilho 1998
and Kerche 2002 on the public prosecution). But approaches that inves-
tigate the interrelationship between institutions of accountability and
their combined impact on the output of accountability are less common.
The key point here is that institutions interact to form what Mainwaring
(2003, 30) calls “a web of mechanisms of accountability”; this matrix
needs to be studied at an intermediate level that recognizes that the
interaction between individual institutions influences overall provision
of the public good of accountability in its three stages.
Interaction is often the key problem of the accountability process:
while some institutions are weaker than others in terms of performance
or efficiency, the interaction between well-functioning institutions can be
equally problematic to the overall goal of ensuring accountability. To use
a dental analogy, the problem is not always the toothlessness of individ-
ual institutions but the orthodontia of the various institutional teeth; the
performance of the full system of accountability may be plagued by the
gaps and overlaps between institutions. Overlapping areas of responsi-
bility, or, conversely, gaps between areas of responsibility, and the
extreme independence of various institutions can combine to create a
system marked by remarkable institutional performance at some levels
but overall inefficiency.
As Persson et al. (1997, 1168) note, the “separation of powers can
worsen accountability by creating a common pool problem.” In a simi-
lar fashion, the division of responsibilities among various competing
bureaucracies may have positive effects, such as reinforcing jurisdic-
tions; but it may also lead to the duplication of some tasks, such as
investigation, without a corresponding increase in ownership for over-
sight or sanction responsibilities.
MIDLEVEL INSTITUTIONS OF
ACCOUNTABILITY IN BRAZIL
Each of the four key midlevel institutions of accountability faces varying
incentives to exercise its functions of oversight, investigation, and sanc-
tion. The Federal Public Ministry is arguably the most important institu-
tion of accountability at the federal level in Brazil. Theoretically, it
receives cases from society and the federal police, assembles the evi-
dence, and prosecutes. But in reality, the MPF has a highly dispersed
focus, a consequence of the its high degree of institutional independ-
ence, its small size, and the autonomy of individual prosecutors.
The MPF’s independence from the executive branch began in the
1980s and culminated in guarantees, in the 1988 Constitution, of insti-
tutional autonomy and extensive accountability responsibilities. In its

new guise, the MPF exists in an institutional limbo outside the execu-
tive and judicial branches (Macedo Junior 1995), causing it to be fre-
quently labeled the “fourth branch” of government.
The federal procurador geral, or prosecutor general, who heads the
MPF, is appointed by the president for a two-year term from among the
members of the MPF. It is exceedingly difficult to remove the prosecu-
tor general during this term (Kerche 2002, 67–69). Yet despite this strong
guarantee of independence, the prosecutor general has only loose con-
trol over the other members of the MPF, who are protected from hier-
archical internal oversight by a constitutionally guaranteed system of
promotion based on merit and tenure in office. Prosecutors are guaran-
teed life tenure, and cannot be removed or have their salaries reduced.
The absence of a strict hierarchy in the MPF also weakens the possibil-
ity of external influence on the institution (Sadek and Castilho 1998).
While the prosecutor general can decide in some suits whether the MPF
will go to court, determined individual prosecutors have considerable
leeway to prioritize their own preferred legal cases outside of the pros-
ecutor general’s and the executive branch’s preferences.
The MPF clearly plays a major role in the accountability process, not
only because of its constitutional mandate to do so, but also in practice.
The high quality of the small core of roughly 350 promotores (prosecu-
tors), chosen via a rigorous public examination, means that its members
are uniquely qualified to carry out complex prosecutions. Two issues,
however, limit the MPF’s effectiveness as the leading enforcement insti-
tution in corruption investigations.
First, the MPF typically plays no role during the oversight stage. The
MPF has no incentives to conduct ex ante oversight—this is simply not a
part of its job description—meaning that it plays a role only after malfea-
sance has taken place and has been detected. Once it has been informed
of acts against the public interest, the MPF often begins its own investi-
gation in preparation for prosecution. This investigatory role has grown
in recent years, but with this growth have come a number of institutional
problems. Not only has the MPF been criticized for its excessive activism,
for its members’ pursuit of the press spotlight, and for the political nature
of some of its investigations, but it has serious problems of follow-
through. The huge volume of potential cases, the slow judicial process,
and the discretion of individual prosecutors in choosing which cases to
pursue has meant that the whole of the MPF’s activities tend to lack any
coherent overall direction. As Kerche notes, “personal desire—that ‘neb-
ulous zone’ of institutions—is more important than the typical incentive
structures of a principal-agent relationship” (2002, 120). Furthermore, the
absence of specific training for investigatory functions, conflicts with the
federal police over jurisdiction, a limited number of prosecutors, and a
high volume of complaints that require investigation mean that the inves-
tigatory process in the MPF is weak and seldom sufficient to buttress
effective judicial action on its own.
Second, the MPF’s institutional performance is undermined by its
interaction with other institutions. There is a marked absence of per-
manent links for cooperation on information gathering and investigation
between the MPF and other institutions. In none of the cases studied did
a clear pattern of institutionalized cooperation, coordination, informa-
tion sharing, or division of labor with other institutions emerge; this
shortcoming may prolong the investigative process and lead to the
duplication of information-gathering activities. As in many other coun-
tries, moreover, prosecutors are subject to strict rules on what they can
do without judicial approval: wiretaps, the preventive arrest of suspects,
and the seizure of information all require a judge’s approval. There are
clear civil rights and privacy concerns that argue in favor of such restric-
tions. But there have also been frequent turf wars between the MPF and
federal police forces, which claim the right to investigative functions as
their own monopoly. As a result of the constraints placed on the MPF’s
role, prosecutors have sometimes resorted to ad hoc methods of obtain-
ing information, such as through leaks to the press intended to gener-
ate new information, investigations carried out by the MPF despite legal
contestation of its investigatory powers, and an increasing reliance on
criminal prosecutions, which increase the operational latitude of prose-
cutors (Arantes 2002, 158–59).
In sum, despite its strong independence and the high caliber of its
prosecutors, the MPF is poorly equipped for oversight. At the same time,
however, it has little control over the application of sanctions on wrong-
doers at the other end of the accountability process, and has not always
upheld prosecution as its first priority. It has few incentives for suc-
cessful prosecution: not only is promotion rigidly established according
to time of service, but promotores can glean greater public notoriety in
the investigatory stages than by successively completing lengthy prose-
cutions. This is true especially because the judicial system, with all its
delays and unpredictability, is seldom conducive to efficient prosecu-
tion. Many legal cases may take between five and ten years to complete;
in other words, between one-fifth and one-third of a prosecutor’s career.
As a result, the MPF’s success in effectively sanctioning public servants
has been mixed. While much of the blame for this performance falls on
court delays, the MPF’s incentive structure itself also plays a role. The
dispersion of prosecutors’ attention across both the high-profile investi-
gatory stages and the slow and frequently delay-ridden sanctioning
stages tends to turn old cases, of which there are many, into a bureau-
cratic slog that has little likelihood of imposing rapid or effective sanc-
tions on offenders.
The Federal Police
The role of the federal police in addressing corruption is written into the
constitution, which gives the police the responsibility to “investigate
penal infractions against the political and social order, or against the
goods, services and interests of the Union” (Brazil 1988, Art. 144). Yet
the internal structure of the federal police is much less autonomous than
that of the MPF. Members of the police are directly subordinate to the
Ministry of Justice, and federal police operate under a strict internal hier-
archy, centered on 27 state superintendencies. They are under far
stricter executive control, as all senior officer positions are filled at the
pleasure of the executive branch.
The primary function of the federal police is investigative. The clear-
est delineation of the federal police’s function from that of the MPF is
that the police can investigate criminal activity but cannot prosecute. This
distinction suggests that the federal police should have clear and open
lines of communication with the MPF. But this has often not been the
case, given the turf wars between the two bureaucracies and the
increased MPF oversight of police activities. The president of the Associ-
ation of Federal Police recently expressed his exasperation with the MPF:
Until when will we be quiet while the Ministério Público earns the
credit for the Police’s work?...Until when will society be deceived
by the Ministério Público, which claims to be the author of investi-
gations that always go right? [. . .] Ever since the 1988 Constitution
[. . .] the Ministério Público has worked to build up a saintly image
that leads society to believe that [it] is the very envoy of God on
Earth, ready to redeem the sins of the Executive, Legislature, and
Judiciary. (Berredo 2003)
Meanwhile, the federal police’s relations with the other institutions

described here have been less conflictual, but remain largely ad hoc.
Overall, the federal police’s performance has left something to be
desired in terms of self-activation. Unlike the MPF, the federal police act
mainly in the investigatory stages, rather than either the oversight or
accountability-holding stages; also unlike the MPF, federal police seldom
push the limits in their pursuit of malfeasance by political figures. This
is perhaps partly because of a different internal institutional culture, dif-
ferent career incentives, and particularly the absence of institutional
autonomy.
Furthermore, the federal police as an institution has little mandate
and few incentives to work in ex ante prevention and oversight of other
public bodies. In the investigatory stage, its actions tend to be sporadic
and highly case-specific, responding to specific accusations or suspect
activity. While the federal police are well prepared for investigations,
with significant technical expertise, the process of case selection can be
influenced by the institution’s hierarchical structure and its subordina-

tion to a politically appointed director, who is in turn under the author-
ity of the justice minister. The federal police, moreover, have no direct
influence in the final stage of the accountability process, as they do not
take cases to the courts and must rely on the MPF for prosecution, in a
relationship that is less formalized and more conflictual than otherwise
might be desirable. The different incentive structures in the two institu-
tions also play a role, leading the MPF to focus more on executive
malfeasance while the federal police seeks to avoid conflict with the
executive branch, its principal overseer.
The federal police’s erratic performance may also be related to the
small size of the police force relative to its responsibilities. Currently,
7,800 federal police agents cover the agency’s responsibilities for fight-
ing drug trafficking, contraband, tax evasion, money laundering, and
financial crimes; protecting human rights, the environment, and histori-
cal landmarks; controlling migration; overseeing the civil service; and
combating fraud and corruption. This relatively small workforce also has
a small budget, estimated at R$168 million a year, or a little more than
1 percent of the budget of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (Veja
2004). At the same time, the federal police’s reputation has not been
particularly well served by allegations of corruption within the agency
in recent years. The current director general has publicly noted that 10
percent of the federal police force is corrupt, another 80 percent toler-
ate this corruption, and only 10 percent actively oppose it (Veja 2004).
Facing these problems, the federal police has recently undergone an
internal restructuring that may help to improve its reputation and per-
formance. Beginning in 1997, all agents were required to hold a college
degree, a change that has led to the replacement of nearly two-thirds of
the force. New agents go through a substantial background check, with
an emphasis on ethical behavior. These changes have been further
extended under the Lula government, which appointed a well-known
proponent of reform, Paulo Lacerda, as director. Lacerda has overseen
a number of actions since 2003 that snared corrupt federal police agents,
often in partnership with state and federal ministérios públicos.
The Tribunal de Contas
The Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) has existed since 1890 as the
organ responsible for the oversight of public finances. As such, it is, in
theory, the primary agent responsible for oversight of all federal public
spending, with six main responsibilities: overseeing expenditures, cor-
recting irregular or illegal spending patterns, auditing and authorizing
public accounts, applying punitive fines and other sanctions against
those responsible for irregular or illegal acts, providing advisory studies
and data to Congress, and preparing declarations on the legality or con-

stitutionality of spending decisions (Speck and Nagel 2002; Speck 2000).
The TCU is internally divided into secretariats, each of which is
responsible for analyzing the performance of a given sector of the gov-
ernment. The activity most closely associated with accountability for
corrupt acts is the conduct of inspections and audits, which can be trig-
gered by a number of different actors, ranging from politicians to indi-
vidual citizens. Decisions on such audits and inspections are taken by a
quorum of ministers, but the TCU is limited in its sanctioning power to
the imposition of a fine or the repayment of misspent public funds. The
TCU cannot impose penal or civil penalties, but it can communicate the
facts of the case to the MPF to take to court.
The TCU theoretically operates throughout all three stages of the
accountability process; that is, in oversight, investigation, and sanction-
ing. In oversight, the TCU is responsible for the periodic and continu-
ous monitoring of spending and management. It conducts regular
(albeit not universal) audits of government spending. Yet the large
number of accounts to be audited and the broad bureaucratic responsi-
bilities of TCU staff tend to overburden auditors and technical staff,
making them unable to cover all the potential cases thrown before
them. It is not uncommon for government accounts to be approved only
after the incumbent president has stepped down (Figueiredo 2001, 710).
Furthermore, the scope of the TCU’s responsibilities includes a number
of tasks only secondarily related to fighting corruption: analyzing the
government’s annual accounts, maintaining bureaucratic files, and so
forth. These tasks consume great resources but are not at the heart of
anticorruption activities. In 2003, only 14.9 percent of the cases heard
by the TCU related specifically to corruption, including audits, inspec-
tions, or the actual hearing of accusations of corruption (TCU 2003). Of
the remainder, more than 60 percent were either administrative or
bureaucratic in nature, and another 8.5 percent were appeals of previ-
ously decided cases.
In the investigatory stages, the TCU has a highly qualified staff to
verify the licit nature of government operations. The problem lies in
addressing the red flags that suggest bad spending practices. In both the
São Paulo Labor Court and the SUDAM cases in this study, even when
signs of irregularities and misconduct were apparent to the TCU, the
absence of communication between accountability institutions and slow
decisionmaking by TCU ministers meant that revenues continued to be
allocated to both projects. The ex post process of approving project
accounting is also extraordinarily lengthy, taking between 18 and 20
months on average. Furthermore, despite the TCU’s theoretical inde-
pendence, the political nature of appointments means that “the TCU
cannot conclude any audit that runs contrary to the political and eco-
nomic interests of [its ministers]” (Fleischer 2000, 103–4; Figueiredo 2001,

710).3 The highly political nomination process—which often taps deputies
and senators who have not been re-elected—has made it difficult for the
TCU to act impartially and independently, especially in overseeing the
alleged malfeasance of the executive branch or its allies in Congress.
A second problem is the inefficacy of TCU sanctions. While the TCU
frequently condemns public servants to repay the Treasury, there are
few examples of the actual repayment of misused or misappropriated
sums in corruption cases. Many TCU decisions are appealed in the fed-
eral courts, extending the amount of time needed to punish civil ser-
vants involved in corrupt activities, or the amount of time before money
is repaid to the Treasury. Recovery of misspent revenues is therefore
extremely low. Fines and other monetary claims by the TCU between
2000 and 2004 totaled R$2.3 billion, of which it is estimated that only 2
to 3 percent was paid (TCU 2004–2005; Correio Braziliense 2005). Fur-
thermore, TCU sentences are usually executed by the Finance Ministry’s
Procuradoria or by the Advocacy General, both subordinate to the
executive branch. In other words, the executive branch has ample
opportunities to sidestep TCU sanctions (Ferraz 2003).
Another problem is the lack of concrete institutional ties to other
accountability organs, which might improve the investigatory process or
the chances of concrete sanctions of administrative malfeasance and
corruption. Although the MPF has a permanently staffed office in the
TCU, this office has been largely autonomous from the rest of the MPF,
and it plays the role less of a liaison between the two institutions and
more that of an appraiser of the legality of TCU reports. More effective
links are lacking.
Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry
Although it is by nature an ad hoc body, the CPI has existed as an insti-

tution in Brazil since the 1934 Constitution, albeit with its procedures
and power continuously expanded through the 1988 Constitution.
Under the constitutional rules, CPIs can be set up by the Senate, the
Chamber of Deputies, or both, with the approval of one-third of the
house’s members. The key restriction, however, is that in order to be
established, a CPI must be charged with investigating a “specific fact.”
The main legal question this raises, and about which the legislation is
curiously ambiguous, is how to define a specific fact.4 The ambiguity
surrounding this definition in practice has meant that CPIs tend to
expand their scope over time, which weakens the ability of CPIs to con-
clude their investigations in the fixed term they are given.5
CPIs are given “parajudicial” powers to conduct their investigations,
which allow them to assemble evidence in much the same manner as
the MPF, with their acts regulated by the civil and penal code (Kimura
2001, 90). Like the MPF, CPIs are required to obtain judicial authoriza-
tion to tap telephone lines or search homes, and in order to overcome
bank secrecy laws, they must have the approval of a majority in Con-
gress (Pedone et al. 2002). Yet despite their strong investigatory powers,
the CPIs have no punitive powers. They are restricted to filing their final
reports with the congressional ethics committee (if a congressional rep-
resentative is involved), or to sending their reports to the MPF for sub-
sequent action. Follow-up by Congress on these reports has been erratic
at best. Furthermore, fewer than one in five proposed CPIs actually are
created and conclude their work (Estado de São Paulo 2005b;
Figueiredo 2001).
The low degree of institutionalized interactions with other organiza-
tions and the circumscribed life and scope of a CPI’s investigations make
it somewhat difficult for CPIs to carry out complex investigations. It is not
unheard of for members of the MPF to refuse to cooperate with the work
of CPIs, fearing an improper weakening of the MPF’s institutional auton-
omy; and the federal police’s interaction with CPIs can be exceedingly
bureaucratic, responding to specific requests but doing little to carry
investigations forward beyond the narrow request. Often, the CPI’s inves-
tigations are too broad for their own limited capacity, and also require
additional time that would extend beyond the CPI’s fixed term. The sen-
ators, deputies, and their staffs in CPIs do not always have the necessary
technical skill for investigations that might be better carried out by the
MPF or the federal police. Furthermore, the temporary nature of the CPI
means that no institutional ties are permanently established.
Another problem is the inherently political nature of CPIs, which
reflect the interests of the majority in Congress and, therefore, frequently
those of the executive branch as well. As a result, when investigations
turn to civil servants or members of the executive branch, the perform-
ance of CPIs may reflect the political strength of governments more than
underlying culpability. The creation of a CPI is always a political choice,
so that in cases like that of Senator Luiz Otávio, none was created; in
the case of SUDAM, although opposition parties sought to open a CPI,
they could not overcome opposition from the governing majority.
The main problem associated with the CPIs is related to their coer-
civeness; that is, their ability to generate concrete sanctions. Even when
the CPI is effective in the investigative stage, its sanctioning capacity is
quite low. It is most effective in imposing reputational or political costs
when the accused are members of Congress who can be removed from
their posts. When the focus is on malfeasance by those outside Con-
gress, the CPI is limited in what it can do, aside from sending all the
data it collects to the MPF, which then tries to build a judicial case.
Often, however, the final reports of CPIs are very inconclusive, provid-
ing only broad explications of the cases under investigation and very
little material of any use in judicial proceedings. As a result, CPIs tend
to have few punitive repercussions for those outside the political world,
and especially for those outside the national congress. The sanctions on
politicians, meanwhile, tend to be limited to removal from Congress,
either through expulsion (cassação) or voluntary resignation, followed
by few or no penal or civil sanctions.
CASE STUDIES OF ACCOUNTABILITY

To analyze how these institutions of accountability function in tandem,
this study selected six prominent corruption scandals at the federal level
that received considerable attention in the Brazilian media. The chief
selection criterion was somewhat arbitrary: cases were chosen in which
the underlying alleged crime or misdeed took place at least five years
prior to the outset of the research, so that the full accountability process
could be retrospectively traced. Obviously, this criterion give much
greater weight to the second and third stages of the accountability
process (investigation and accountability holding) than to performance
in the first stage (oversight), because these were cases in which oversight
had already led to allegations of wrongdoing. This is one of the limita-
tions of any research in this area: it is impossible to know how many
cases did not rise to the attention of accountability institutions. Nor were
the researchers eager to dig up their own cases, although anecdotal evi-
dence suggests that there is no shortage of potential case studies.
A potential criticism is that the selected cases were among the high-
est-profile corruption cases of the past decade. It is therefore likely that
these cases were given higher priority than usual (although govern-
ment foot dragging may have occasionally exerted pressure in the
opposite direction). While the potential selection bias must be
acknowledged, the selection has been driven by the need to choose
cases that were widely reported in the media and therefore required no
speculation or independent investigation. Furthermore, if accountabil-
ity has been lacking in these cases, it is even more likely to have been
lacking in lower-profile cases.
São Paulo Regional Labor Court
The construction of the São Paulo Regional Labor Court building was
budgeted at R$60 million when it began in 1992. Over the course of the
project, approximately R$263 million in funding was transferred from
the Federal Treasury, of which only R$70 million was spent on con-
struction. The remainder was allegedly siphoned off in a scheme
headed by Judge Nicolau dos Santos Neto (commonly referred to in the
press as Lalau), with the participation of a senator, Luiz Estevão, and the
president and vice president of the construction company that had won
the contract. Revelation of the illicit transfers led to the creation of a CPI,
which, in turn, ended in the forced resignation (cassação) of Senator
Luiz Estevão in June 2000. In December 2001, the accused were con-
demned by the TCU to return R$169.4 million to the public coffers. The
only judicial condemnation so far has been Lalau’s 14-year jail sentence,
which was commuted to house arrest (Folha de São Paulo 2001a, d,
2004a; Jornal do Brasil 1999a, b, e–i, 2000a–h; Isto É 1999c, d, 2000b, c;
Veja 1999b, c; Estado de São Paulo 2005a; Pedone et al. 2002; Speck and
Nagel 2002; TCU 2003; Brazil 1999a).
Senator Luiz Otávio
Senator Luis Otávio, from the state of Pará, was accused of involvement
in a series of frauds against the national development bank (BNDES). A
company the senator ran, Rodomar, obtained special financing from the
BNDES in 1992 for the construction of 13 ferries. An investigation by the
federal police discovered that with the alleged connivance of func-
tionaries at the state-owned Banco do Brasil, Otávio received R$13 mil-
lion to construct the ferries, which were never built.
These reports were taken to the Senate Ethics Commission in 2001,
but the case was filed away because the alleged wrongdoing took
place before Otávio became a senator. No CPI was created to investi-
gate the case. Although a penal case is pending, there has been no
judicial decision to date. Otávio was nominated by the outgoing Car-
doso government to become a minister of the TCU and was approved
by the Senate in June 2004, although that nomination has now been
shelved (Acórdão 1608 at the Supreme Federal Tribunal; Correio
Braziliense 2004; Folha de São Paulo 2000a, 2001g, h, 2004b; Estado de
São Paulo 2004; Isto É 2000a).
The Budget “Dwarves”
In 1993, in a bombshell interview with Veja magazine, a congressional

staffer alleged that deputies were systematically defrauding the Treasury
by writing budget amendments that would benefit specific senators,
deputies, and businessmen. The scheme was allegedly run by a number
of deputies whose short stature gave rise to the nickname “dwarves” in
the press. These legislators allegedly defrauded the Treasury in two
ways: some of their budget amendments benefited specific construction
companies in exchange for bribes and illicit campaign funds and other
budget amendments transferred funds to phantom social organizations
created by friends and family members, who appropriated the transfers.
A CPI was created in October 1993, which led to the expulsion of

six deputies by cassação. Four resigned before the investigation con-
cluded, and eight were found innocent by Congress. There have been
no criminal convictions as yet. The MPF filed suit against all those
involved, but because of changes to the civil code that were imple-
mented in August 1999, all these suits (which had already reached the
Supreme Court, or Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF) were returned to the
courts of first instance for a new hearing (Magalhães Ribeiro 2004; Brazil
1994; Folha de São Paulo 2004c, d; 1994a–e; Veja 1993).
SUDAM
In mid-2000, Senator Jader Barbalho was accused of misusing nearly

R$2 billion in funds controlled by the federal Amazonian Development
Superintendency (SUDAM), a major regional development program.
Investigations by the federal police, the MPF, and the Ministry of
National Integration (which oversaw SUDAM), in coordination with the
newly created Corregedoria Geral da União, discovered a system of side
payments to politicians and SUDAM officials. The payments created a
parallel market of fiscal incentives, guaranteed weak oversight of proj-
ects, and led to overcharges in many projects. Public pressure helped
push the case to the Senate Ethics Committee, resulting in Barbalho’s
resignation in October 2001. As a direct result of the scandal, SUDAM
was closed in May 2001 and its responsibilities transferred to a new
Amazonian Development Agency.
The TCU investigated more than 250 cases related to SUDAM but
filed few charges. Of the most prominent players in the scandal, the TCU
sentenced only the former SUDAM superintendent to pay a fine; it did
not condemn Jader Barbalho. Although a number of judicial cases
remain open, there have been no high-level convictions, and the STF
ruled against the MPF in its case against 25 of the highest-ranking defen-
dants. Barbalho was elected a federal deputy in 2002 (Inquérito 1919 and
Ação Penal 336 at the STF; Correio Braziliense 1995a, 2000, 2001; Folha
de São Paulo 1998, 2000c, d; Isto É 2001 a, b; Jornal do Brasil 2001 a–q).
The Amazon Vigilance System
The November 1995 issue of Isto É magazine reported accusations of

supposed corruption in the Sistema de Vigilância da Amazônia (SIVAM),
a system for monitoring air traffic in the Amazon region. According to
the story, a senior Brazilian diplomat allegedly had lobbied in Congress
to facilitate the release of funding for the project, acting specifically in
favor of major contractors. The article mentioned the participation of a
number of senators and ministers in the case and led to the rapid dis-
missal of Ambassador Júlio Gomes dos Santos and the federal air force
minister. The TCU concluded that the contracts in the case were above-
board, but a CPI found that corruption and influence trafficking were
prevalent in the program. Despite investigations by the MPF and the fed-
eral police, to date no judicial action has been taken against those impli-
cated by the CPI (Brazil 2002; Correio Braziliense 1995b, 1996; Folha de
São Paulo 1995a, b, 1996; Isto É 1995, 1998; Carta Capital 2001).
Banco Marka and FonteCindam
On January 13, 1999, the government freed the previously fixed

exchange rate, causing the currency immediately to fall by nearly 10
percent against the U.S. dollar, followed by steady depreciation through-
out the rest of that year. According to later allegations, Banco Marka, a
small bank owned by Salvatore Alberto Cacciola, had received insider
information from the Central Bank that there would be no devaluation.
When the devaluation occurred, Banco Marka’s bets unraveled, leading
it to accumulate roughly R$120 million in losses on Bolsa de Mercado-
rias e Futuros (BM&F), Brazil’s futures market. After a meeting with
Francisco Lopes, the Central Bank’s acting president, Cacciola was per-
mitted to purchase dollars from the Central Bank at an exchange rate
below the new market rate, which allowed him to pay off some debts
and recover some of his own investments. The same privilege was
extended to another small bank, FonteCindam.
In a case that took many twists and turns, the Central Bank initially
argued that the exchange operations for Marka and FonteCindam had
been carried out in response to a letter from the BM&F arguing that the
failure of the two banks could lead to a serious financial market crisis.
But it was later discovered that the Central Bank had requested the
letter, which did not arrive in Brasília until after Cacciola’s visit and after
the operations had taken place. Meanwhile, Cacciola allegedly had
access to taped phone conversations that suggested the sale of privi-
leged Central Bank information by Lopes and his former partners in a
consultancy.
Lopes resigned as Central Bank president on February 2, and in
March, a CPI was created. The CPI decided that the Central Bank direc-
torate should be held civilly and criminally responsible for assisting the
two banks. A number of lower court decisions obtained by the MPF as
a result have condemned Central Bank directors for “administrative
improbity,” corruption, and fraud, but all are pending appeal. Cacciola
faces a number of federal penalties, but none of the cases has been def-
initely resolved. He was granted habeas corpus after one low-level court
convicted him in 1999, and he soon fled Brazil for Italy, where he cur-
rently resides (Brazil Senate 1999b; Folha de São Paulo 1999, 2000b,
2001f; Isto É 1999a–c; Estado de São Paulo 2000; O Globo 2000; Veja
1999a, 2001a, b).
PERFORMANCE OF THE
ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTIONS
The six cases described here illustrate the importance of breaking the
accountability process into its component parts. As in most countries
and most major scandals, the oversight function failed in each case, with
allegations coming to light only after the alleged malfeasance had been
consummated. The size and scale of these cases, however, and the
timing with which they came to light for the most part suggest a slow
and inefficient oversight process.
In the Banco Marka case, the essential facts of the Central Bank’s
action came to light less than a month after the alleged wrongdoing was
committed; but in both the Regional Labor Court and the Senator Luiz
Otávio cases, the investigation began seven to eight years after the
wrongdoing allegedly first took place. In all but the Labor Court case (in
which the TCU raised concerns about the bidding process in 1993 that
went unheeded until 1998), alleged malfeasance was revealed not by
the accountability institutions but by whistleblowers, political adver-
saries, press reports, or a combination of the three. All of this suggests
that delays in the accountability process in Brazil are not due solely to
a slow judicial process, but also to slow and uncertain monitoring and
oversight processes.
When the alarm bells eventually went off, all the institutions jumped
into investigatory mode, producing overlapping investigations. On the
whole, their interaction is the source of considerable bureaucratic
rivalry, which can be salutary if it sparks deeper investigation. With no
central coordinator or any significant institutionalized lines of commu-
nication between bureaucracies, however, the investigatory process
tends to generate substantial amounts of pertinent information, but lacks
a clear chain of command or filtering process by which such informa-
tion could be effectively deployed. The media tend to be the only sys-
tematic aggregator of information, which means that once press atten-
tions turn elsewhere, pressures for accountability and the collation of
disparate information dissipate. Investigation is, moreover, a rather
lengthy process, with each of the institutions analyzed here participat-
ing for months on end.
Table 1 gives an idea of the four institutions’ length of involvement.
In analyzing how long the MPF worked on each case, the time between
when it began work and when it filed its first court case was used as
the gauge. The timeline here was dated from the last case filed in the
first round of filings.6
Table 1. Number of Days’ Investigation by Each Institution
Ministério Federal
Case Público Police CPI TCU
São Paulo Labor Court 1,036 None 245 1,546
Senator Luiz Otávio 69 1,164 None Ongoing
Budget “Dwarves” 241 None 93 NA
SUDAM 391 365 None NA
SIVAM NA 366 293 237
Marka and FonteCindam 964 464 239 None
Average Days 540 590 218 892
Average Years 1.48 1.62 0.60 2.44
The third stage, the imposition of practical sanctions against those

involved in the private uses of public property, reveals a similar prob-
lem of institutional coordination. Budgetary sanctions, such as TCU con-
demnations that “require” the repayment of stolen or misappropriated
funds, occur occasionally but have little or no effect. Sanctions under
the criminal and civil codes are so slow as to be virtually nonexistent,
as table 2 illustrates. Partly because of the slow performance of the judi-
ciary and the possibility of repeated appeals, in only one of the cases
that have gone to the courts has a final condemnation been issued (the
Labor Court case). The sanctions imposed on allegedly corrupt activity
thus tend to be mainly reputational, such as bad press and, in the case
of elected or appointed officials, forced resignation (cassação).
Overall, a few patterns emerge. In all of the cases but one (SIVAM),
all the accountability institutions involved reached similar conclusions
on the culpability of public servants. But there is an absence of owner-
ship: members of CPIs, the federal police, and to a lesser extent the TCU
generally consider their work done once files have been passed along
to the MPF. Even though the MPF continues to be responsible for seeing
the cases through the courts, its own members often move on to other
tasks, an unsurprising reaction to the length of the judicial process
(especially relative to a prosecutor’s career) and the relatively small
number of federal prosecutors. Even in high-profile cases, investigations
are in constant danger of falling into the chasm between institutions
once the political spotlight is removed from the investigatory phase. All
the institutions involved tend to focus on the investigatory phase, which
leads to the accumulation and public revelation of great amounts of
incriminating information but with few corresponding sanctions or
improvements in future oversight.
Perhaps most important, the sanctions imposed on corruption are
relatively minor. Of the six cases, only one has led to concrete criminal
Table 2. Sanctions Imposed
Reputational Budgetary Criminal Civil

São Paulo Press coverage, forced TCU condemnation Jail sentence for Judge Nicolau’s accounts
Labor Court resignation of Senator Nicolau; commuted to abroad sequestered as
Luiz Estevão house arrest part of the criminal
case against him
Senator Luiz Press coverage TCU special accounting Case pending in STF None
Otávio for some projects
under way
Budget “Dwarves” Voluntary and forced Some project-specific No final condemna- None
resignations TCU condemnations tions as yet
SUDAM Voluntary resignation Some project-specific STF ruled against MPF Some requests filed
of Barbalho (later TCU condemnations for sequester of
elected to Congress) alleged perpetrators’
assets
SIVAM Congressional TCU cleared accused None None
investigation found of wrongdoing
wrongdoing; cabinet
resignations
TAYLOR AND BURANELLI: ACCOUNTABILITY IN BRAZIL
Marka and Congressional investiga- No TCU involvement Cacciola arrested, Requests to sequester
FonteCindam tion and congressional granted habeas corpus, Cacciola’s assets are
testimony; extensive fled to Italy. Case under appeal
press coverage pending
77
sanctions against an alleged wrongdoer to date, which suggests that the

sanctions are too long in coming to pose a significant deterrent or even
a punitive effect (or, just as important, to clear the names of the unjustly
accused). The budgetary sanctions imposed by the TCU have few con-
crete implications, especially if the sums misappropriated are large and
hard to track down. While reputational sanctions are the key means of
punishing wrongdoers, there is little to prevent a wrongdoer from con-
testing these once he or she has resigned from office. In most cases,
moreover, the effects of reputational sanctions are limited to public
officeholders rather than to private citizens similarly involved in malfea-
sance. In any regard, as Jader Barbalho’s election to Congress a year
after he resigned his senate seat and Luiz Otávio’s nomination to the
TCU illustrate, such reputational sanctions may not have much influence
on future career success.
CONCLUSIONS
A properly functioning democracy is assumed to ensure the accounta-
bility of government officials for the “public-regarding” nature of their
acts; indeed, this is one of the key claims of democracy in relation to
other political regimes. This study has sought to explain why corruption
is a recurring theme in Brazil’s new democracy and why, despite the
considerable strengthening of institutions of accountability since Brazil’s
democratic transition, accountability for political corruption remains
weak.
Two potential sources of accountability that were not discussed
here clearly play a role. Judicial delays and congestion complicate the
task of carrying the legal sanctioning process to its natural end effi-
ciently; and weak electoral accountability in Brazilian politics, especially
the weak ties between voters and legislators, complicated by the loose
and undisciplined party system, creates perverse incentives for the cre-
ation of political alliances. These relationships create a self-reinforcing
cycle of policymaking for the sake of coalition building for the sake of
policymaking.
Not surprisingly, one of the first reactions when the current scandal
involving Lula and the PT hit Brasília was a call for a comprehensive
political reform bill, an idea that is regularly bandied about in the wake
of scandal (e.g., Estado de São Paulo 2005d). Scandals come and scan-
dals go, but no serious political reform has been implemented since the
1988 Constitution. Judicial reform, too, has been halting: after nearly a
decade of deliberation, an otherwise welcome 2004 reform seems likely
to lead to only marginal gains in the efficiency and efficacy of courts,
with few effects in speeding up legal sanctions or improving the incen-
tives for prosecutors in this phase of the accountability process.
As a result, the best and most practical short-term solutions to the

problem of accountability in Brazil may be mostly small-scale and inter-
nal bureaucratic changes, rather than large-scale systemic reforms that
require significant executive leadership and congressional dedication
(neither of which may be available in the midst of scandal). In this light,
this study has tried, first, to illustrate why it is important to break the
accountability process into its component stages, and second, to analyze
the interaction between the various institutions involved in each stage.
These two analytical contributions clearly have significant cross-national
applicability, and they also provide clear policy guidance for the Brazil-
ian case.
It is not sufficient to argue simply that there is no accountability
because institutions are weak or political pressures too strong. The
weakness of the “web of accountability” in Brazil is not due solely, or
even primarily, to the weakness of individual institutions in that web.
Indeed, although they are not terribly well funded, helpful improve-
ments have been undertaken in the federal police in recent years, and
the TCU and CPIs have been used much more intensively than ever
before. The MPF, meanwhile, is one of the strongest prosecutorial
bodies in the region, with an enviable degree of independence and pro-
fessionalism. Furthermore, other reasonably well equipped institutions
not discussed here because of their relative youth—the Corregedoria
Geral da União and the interagency Council for Control of Financial
Activities, for example—are also a part of the growing web.
The larger problem is the imperfect “orthodontia” of the institutions
that make up the web of accountability in Brazil. As the example of the
four institutions analyzed here illustrates, the web of accountability suf-
fers from overlapping responsibilities, all of which tend to give priority
to investigation rather than to oversight or sanctioning. This is especially
true when scandals erupt and these institutions come under intense
political pressure to produce results. There is also a glaring absence of
long-term institutionalized relations between institutions, which might
create better incentives for their members to cooperate in the pursuit of
offenders at all stages of the process. Together, the overlapping respon-
sibilities and lack of cooperation tend to reinforce the “sunshine”
dynamic: when scandal hits, the various institutions and the civil ser-
vants in them compete vigorously for publicity, but once the immediate
effects of the scandal have passed, the pressures for effective sanction-
ing dissipate, and oversight remains anemic.
Enforcement is undertaken by agents whose own utility functions
influence outcomes (North 1990, 54). The utility function of civil ser-
vants in each institution is influenced by that institution’s subordination
to different masters and its effect on bureaucrats’ professional careers.
The MPF has great autonomy from government; the federal police is
subordinate to the executive branch; the CPI and the TCU are both leg-
islatively controlled, if potentially subject to strong pressure from the
executive branch. The incentives for prosecutors are highly tilted toward
investigation rather than prosecution and sanction. The TCU, and espe-
cially its ministers, tends to be timid and risk-averse, with few incentives
for rigorous oversight except in extreme cases. The federal police have
few career incentives to cooperate with prosecutors and fewer still to
challenge the executive branch. Finally, CPIs are all about selective
investigation of high-profile cases, with no practical repercussions for
their frequent failure to sanction wrongdoers, or even to complete their
investigations once public attention has moved on to other matters.
Furthermore, there is no one central authority overseeing account-
ability actions from start to finish, which means that while allegations of
malfeasance or corruption may be plentiful—emerging from across the
range of institutions—there is little coordination or incentive to push for
practical sanctions, as there might be if the president’s or Congress’s
electoral success depended heavily on the successful prosecution of cor-
ruption. Presidents are often able to stay detached from the crisis, while
incumbent legislators are privileged by the absence of direct lines of
electoral responsibility in Brazil’s open-list proportional representative
system. The existence of competing bureaucracies in which “ambition
counteracts ambition” (Madison et al. 1961, 322) is certainly not a bad
thing. Yet when each of these centers has responsibility for only one
sliver of the accountability process, and almost all the incentives empha-
size the investigation stage, all the institutions compete acrimoniously in
an intense bureaucratic rivalry that brings no compensatory perform-
ance gains.
To put it in Brazilian terms, everything ends up in pizza, and dis-
trust may increase with all the pernicious corollaries that one might
expect: declining confidence in government, poor compliance with the
law, and perhaps even dissatisfaction with democracy.7 As Levi (1999)
has noted, the implicit goals of the accountability process are threefold:
punishing those who transgress, preventing would-be transgressors
from engaging in illicit acts, and fostering trust by convincing “contin-
gent consenters” of the need to cooperate rather than defect.
Because so many of the institutional incentives in postauthoritarian
Brazil tilt toward investigation rather than sanction once allegations have
been made, the process tends to weaken trust in government without
any compensatory punishment of malfeasance. Other collateral effects
on democracy are also significant: ineffective preventive monitoring con-
tributes to the unchecked expansion of abuses that are discovered only
when they reach significant scale; and subsequent investigations influ-
ence policy formulation in other realms by clogging the political process,
but also by diminishing confidence in the criteria by which policy
choices are made. Finally, the punitive stage of the accountability

process in the Brazilian federal case is limited largely to reputational
sanctions. Deterrent goals are therefore largely unmet, and perhaps the
biggest question is why “contingent consenters” obey the law at all, con-
sidering the continuing signs of an absence of accountability.
Accountability matters because it affects the degree of interpersonal
trust in society; because it affects trust in government institutions and
the criteria used to justify policy choices; because it affects the depth
and breadth of democratic institutions (and especially whether they
extend beyond elites); and because trust itself is important, not only for
ethical reasons but for its influence on the possibilities for cooperation
and thus for both democratic deepening and economic growth (Levi
1999; North 1990). Unchecked political corruption permits the contin-
ued diversion of political and economic resources that might be better
employed in addressing pressing developmental issues, such as income
inequality, economic constraints on growth, and relatively low levels of
human development.
Perhaps more important, considerable revelations of corruption,
combined with a perceived dearth of accountability, as in Brazil, weak-
ens trust in the political process, gums up the policy process, and erodes
satisfaction with democracy. At the extreme, as trust in institutions
weakens, the appeal of personalist, clientelistic political solutions tends
to increase (Warren 2004; Madison et al. 150). This is as true in
advanced democracies as in consolidating ones, but the danger, from
the Latin American perspective, lies in the repetition of historic patterns
of personalistic “solutions” to the problem of corruption.
NOTES
Matthew Taylor would like to thank the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa
do Estado de São Paulo, whose funding made this research possible. Both
authors would like to thank William C. Smith and three anonymous reviewers
for their insightful comments. We also appreciate the contributions of a number
of public servants who spoke with us as background to this article. All errors
remain ours alone.
1. Brazil has consistently remained in the second third of countries in the
annual Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index since its incep-
tion. See Transparency International 2004.
2. The CPI falls into somewhat nebulous territory, as it is made up of
elected representatives, but it is included here because, although its members
face electoral controls, it is a prominent monitor of accountability in the execu-
tive branch. Several other institutions not explored here may also play an impor-
tant role in the accountability process. On the front end, as noted above, elec-
toral systems play a role in structuring the incentives politicians face when
confronting corruption. A broad literature explores the absence of accountabil-
ity between the electorate and politicians, focusing primarily on the problems
engendered by open-list proportional representation in establishing clear lines
of vertical responsibility (e.g., Ames 2001). Political oversight of public bureau-
cracies is perceived to be weak in light of strong executive power, the strength
of regional power brokers, and party fragmentation.
The second institution is the judiciary, which arguably has the most impor-
tant role of all in sanctioning corrupt behavior. But it is excluded from the
broader analysis here primarily because it is typically engaged only in the last
stage of the process, and is activated by other institutions rather than actively
pursuing cases to enforce accountability. For the purposes of this study, it is suf-
ficient to note that the Brazilian courts permit repeated appeals and procedural
delays (Taylor 2005); one major challenge accountability holders thus face is
obtaining a final and unappealable conviction before the statute of limitations
on crimes expires. As a result, the courts play an important role in structuring
incentives, especially in the final phase of the accountability process.
Among the many other formal federal government institutions that may
play a tangential role in the accountability process are the Revenue Service
(Receita Federal), through its oversight of financial information; and the Central
Bank, through its control and regulation of capital flows and supervision of
banks. Other institutions outside the federal government that play a role include
the media and state and municipal institutions, such as the state ministérios
públicos. A final institution worth noting is the Corregedoria Geral da União
(roughly translated as Federal Comptroller General). Created in 2001 to investi-
gate crimes against the public treasury, the Corregedoria Geral is subordinate to
the executive branch. Its performance is not analyzed in the six subject cases,
which predate its creation, but it should be an important player in the web of
accountability institutions in the years to come.
3. Although the TCU’s role is included in the section of the Constitution
that describes Congress, it is not fully subordinate to the Congress and indeed
has become less so since 1988 (Ferraz 2003; Medauar 1993, 2004).
4. The Chamber of Deputies rules provide a very vague definition of a
“specific fact” (fato determinado): “a happening of relevant interest to the public
life and the constitutional, legal, economic, and social order” (Article 35, Para-
graph 10 of the Internal Regiment).
5. The terms of CPIs can be extended in 60-day increments, but exten-
sion requires an absolute majority and remains limited to the term of the
elected legislature.
6. In the SIVAM case, the researchers were unable to locate the original
case files related to the senior diplomat’s participation or those associated with
the wiretapping. Therefore the MPF’s participation in this case cannot be confi-
dently calculated. In the Marka and FonteCindam cases, the MPF opened vari-
ous actions against Cacciola, Banco Marka, Lopes, and others. According to
media reports, the federal police had only a secondary role in the São Paulo
Labor Court case, participating in arrests but with little to no involvement in the
actual investigations. In the SIVAM case, by contrast, the federal police had two
investigatory roles. First it analyzed the wiretaps, which it concluded had been
undertaken by the federal police itself, allegedly to investigate drug trafficking.
Then it focused on alleged benefits to the senior diplomat involved in the case;
this phase was inconclusive. The measurement here includes both investiga-
tions. The TCU undertook several small-bore cases in pursuit of the budget
dwarves, but none that covered the full budget operation. In the SUDAM case,
although the press reported fines imposed by the TCU, the researchers were
unable to obtain the case files that would permit them to measure time elapsed
in this TCU investigation.
7. According to the World Values Survey, 78 percent of Brazilians prefer
democracy among all political regimes, but only 28 percent are satisfied with
democracy as it stands (Abranches 2001).
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Ending Up in Pizza:

Brazilians often complain that investigations of corruption by public

It is necessary for mechanisms to exist that are more efficient in the

ministries for tenuous partisan support. As Geddes and Ribeiro Neto

ACCOUNTABILITY AS AN INTERACTIVE PROCESS

implementation? This essay focuses largely on the second definition,

Méndez et al. 1999); on macro-level, cross-national analysis of the prob-

tutional autonomy and extensive accountability responsibilities. In its

The Federal Police

Meanwhile, the federal police’s relations with the other institutions

influenced by the institution’s hierarchical structure and its subordina-

The Tribunal de Contas

and data to Congress, and preparing declarations on the legality or con-

nomic interests of [its ministers]” (Fleischer 2000, 103–4; Figueiredo 2001,

Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry

Although it is by nature an ad hoc body, the CPI has existed as an insti-

CASE STUDIES OF ACCOUNTABILITY

São Paulo Regional Labor Court

Senator Luiz Otávio

The Budget “Dwarves”

In 1993, in a bombshell interview with Veja magazine, a congressional

A CPI was created in October 1993, which led to the expulsion of

In mid-2000, Senator Jader Barbalho was accused of misusing nearly

The Amazon Vigilance System

The November 1995 issue of Isto É magazine reported accusations of

Banco Marka and FonteCindam

On January 13, 1999, the government freed the previously fixed

Table 1. Number of Days’ Investigation by Each Institution

The third stage, the imposition of practical sanctions against those

Reputational Budgetary Criminal Civil

sanctions against an alleged wrongdoer to date, which suggests that the

As a result, the best and most practical short-term solutions to the

choices are made. Finally, the punitive stage of the accountability

—––. 1999b. Relatório Final da Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito destinada a

—––. 2000h. Fatos e boatos. May 31.

North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Per-

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