Prosecutors, Voters, and the Criminalization of Corruption in Latin America: The Case of Lava Jato

The Law in World Affairs program at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs presents a virtual talk with Ezequiel González-Ocantos, professor of comparative and judicial politics at the University of Oxford.

Lava Jato, an unprecedented transnational bribery investigation that started in Brazil in 2014 and spread throughout Latin America, paralyzed economies, upended elections, and collapsed governments. What made Lava Jato possible in a part of the world where impunity for grand corruption is the norm? Why did it expand beyond Brazil and why did prosecutors prove effective in some countries but not in others?

To answer this question, our book traces the legacy of reforms that enhanced prosecutors’ structural capacity to combat white-collar crime. We also show that Lava Jato only became a full-blown anti-corruption crusade where reforms were coupled with investigators’ tactical decision to operate under the umbrella of taskforces that catalysed legal innovation and aggressive fact-finding.

For some members of the elite, the aggressive and unconventional methods deployed to uncover grand corruption were necessary and perfectly justified. Others saw dangerous affronts to the rule of law and democracy. Given these controversies, we also ask: How did voters in contexts with different levels of partisan polarization and aversion to politicians react to a once-in-a-generation attempt to clean politics? Did they instinctively back anti-corruption or did this zealous and unorthodox form of anti-corruption prove too difficult to support despite the long-standing yearning for a different kind of politics? Are anti-corruption crusades like Lava Jato capable of building strong and durable anti-corruption coalitions, or do anti-corruption methods sooner or later become fatally contested?

The book is ultimately a study of the impact of accountability through criminalization, one that dissects the drivers and dilemmas of resolute transparency efforts.

Ezequiel González-Ocantos is professor of comparative and judicial politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, and professorial fellow of Nuffield College. He also serves as the politics and international relations delegate at Oxford University Press. In addition to articles in political science, methodology and socio-legal studies journals, Ezequiel has published four books with Cambridge University Press including Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America (2016) and Prosecutors, Voters, and the Criminalisation of Corruption in Latin America (2023). These books won multiple awards from APSA, IPSA, LASA and ISA. His new book, Latin American Polarisations: Factionalism in Changing Party Systems, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.