CORRUPT-AL

Since the beginning of the 2000s, numerous national and international political and economic organizations have put the fight against corruption at the top of their agenda. It has been the case for the IMF, the OAS, the OECD, the World Bank, national governments and NGOs such as Transparency International. In the Latin American political field, partisan organizations and social movements have seized this issue, either during electoral campaigns or in order to launch impeachment procedures against political opponents (Brazil 2016, Venezuela 2016 and 2018, Peru 2017 and 2018). It has most prominently been the case on the right of the political spectrum (Mr. Macri in Argentina in 2015, S. Piñeira in Chile in 2017, I. Duque in Colombia 2018), but the presidential victory of leftist candidate AM Lopez Obrador in Mexico in July 2018, after having mobilized this issue, provides a counter-point which confirms the partisan transversality of this question. The setting of this anti-corruption agenda has led to the definition of "good practices" related to these policies in Latin America. As reflected by the adoption of an Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACAC) in 1996, the adoption of the Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy (GAC) by the World Bank in 1997, the publication of a Fiscal Transparency Code by the IMF, the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2003, or conferences and training given within the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS). "Good practices" refer to instruments geared towards the "efficiency" of public action, and form one of the criteria of "good governance"; they are materialized by general recommendations and concrete measures defining the situations and standards of behavior considered appropriate in a given public action sector. While the fight against corruption has been extensively studied, processes of transnational diffusion of this framing or processes of enforcement of "best practices” in the name of Democracy have attracted less attention. The well established framing of public action in relation to the fight against corruption currently faces reconfigurations. First, it consolidates and finds legitimacy because of its association with the defense of practices considered "good" and associated with "democratic governance". Second, although it has been mobilized for a long time within the national political systems to support power conquest by both the rights and the left, it favors a redefinition of the balance of power which benefits groups that currently embody the fight against corruption, such as high-ranking magistrates, civil society actors or candidates and governments seeking popular and militant support. These observations reinforce a twofold process of judicialization of politics and and politicization of the judiciary agents. This project studies these new configurations in the fight against corruption through three major issues: 1/the spread of anti-corruption frames and practices by IGOs and transnational networks; 2/the political and institutional uses of this category of public policy; 3/judiciary agents’ involvement in the fight against corruption.