SOCIAL PARTICIPATION AND SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION

The article attempts to explain the dynamics of systemic corruption in the Brazilian context.
Academic studies have shown that more than 2/3 of countries around the world face the
challenge of public resources despoliation by political, economic and bureaucratic elites
(Mungiu-Pippidi, 2013a, 2015). In those countries, there are clear limitations in stabilizing the
foundations of the rule of law: (a) there is no effective separation between private and public
resources; (b) there is no impersonality in the public sphere; and (c) the common good stated
by positive law is articulated by the economic interest in collusion with politicians, trapping the
legal structures. Brazil is one of the countries that is still plagued by high levels of corruption
which affect economic, social and judicial relations, undermining trust, development, and social
wellbeing of population. Recent studies are defending that in this type of society, the main
approach about corruption, the economic, especially through the Agency theory, is extremely
limited. They are examining systemic corruption as a society issue (Rothstein et Varraich, 2017;
Persson et al, 2013; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015, 2013a. Then, the theoretical reference chosen
includes Pierre Bourdieu's Theory of Practice, Alexis de Tocqueville's Theory of Collective
Action and, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Bo Rothstein perspectives to understand systemic
corruption. The question that arises is how the relationship between the State and market actors
considers (or not) Brazilian civil society organizations and how this affects the possibility of
practical effects of social participation. In an attempt to answer such questions, the research
project has as its central objective to analyze the Brazilian legal system in ontologies of light
human societies and practices of CSOs. It also has two specific objectives: a) to construct the
Resilience Matrix of the CSOs as a game model between agents relevant to the policies under
discussion, using the constructivist method of Bourdieu, to find habitus and doxas in the
interactions among the most relevant fields . corruption control policies, defining indicators and
monitoring parameters of emerging variables; and b) systematizing contributions to the
institutional strengthening of CSOs, focusing on the constitutional mechanisms of participation,
according to Rocha (2008) and pointing out alternatives for the sustainability of the discussion
process. It is qualitative research, with qualitative-quantitative perspective. It is divided into
two parts. The first one is the mapping of the juridical-institutional framework and its
conjugation with the ontologies described in Par-delà Nature et Culture (Descola, 2004),
orienting the CSOs through the interactions between the 4 fundamental ontological patterns.
The second is the elaboration of the matrix analysis grid that reflects the interactions already
mapped, using the characterization of systemic corruption (Garcia et al, 2018) and adopting
Bourdieu's concepts of fields and habitus (Bourdieu, 1996; Grenfell, 2018) for differentiate.
main interests at stake. For the analytical phase, the methodology and tools of the Strategic
Territorial Prospective will be used (Godet and Durance, 2011). Analysis categories arise as a
result of the matrix grid. The result is a general model that can help explain the dynamics of
systemic corruption in Brazil. In addition, it is expected to highlight the importance of CSOs
and other mechanisms of social participation for institutional change and overcoming
corruption in Brazil.
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