The debate often oscillates between two rival explanations. The more traditional view understands the problem as a result of individual incentives: public and private agents engage in illicit practices when the expected benefits outweigh the risks of punishment. Inspired by the economics of crime, this perspective maintains that combating corruption requires If the probability of detection increases, and sanctions become credible, corruption ceases to be a rational strategy.
An alternative approach, developed by Bo Rothstein, maintains that systemic corruption functions as a problem of . When the majority believes that “everyone is corrupt”, acting honestly becomes risky and even irrational. The businessman who refuses to pay bribes loses contracts; the server that follows the rules can be isolated. In this context, corruption becomes a social balance supported by shared expectations. The problem stops being just punishing individuals and becomes coordinating simultaneous changes in collective beliefs.
This theoretical difference has relevant implications for public policies. Strategies based solely on punishment tend to produce limited results when faced with systems in which informal norms legitimize illicit practices. Rothstein argues that effective anti-corruption reforms often require rapid and sweeping institutional changes — a kind of reformist “big bang” — capable of signaling that the rules of the game have changed irreversibly. Experiences such as Hong Kong and Singapore illustrate this logic, as does the historical example of Scandinavian countries. In the 19th century, Sweden and Denmark were marked by clientelism and patrimonialism. The transition to more honest States occurred with transformations that simultaneously altered institutions and social expectations.
This does not mean that punishments are irrelevant. Credible sanctions can act as catalysts for institutional change, signaling that illicit behavior will no longer be tolerated. But the bottom line is that, in isolation, increasing penalties rarely dismantles entrenched systems of corruption. Lava Jato produced unprecedented investigations and convictions, dramatically raising the expected cost of corruption. But it also triggered a political and institutional counter-reaction from business, political and social sectors. The link that only now emerges with great clarity is the one that involves lawyers and magistrates in this counter-offensive (such as ).
One example, among many, is enough: he traveled on a jet with the lawyer, who worked in Lava Jato as a defender of Odebrecht. Soon after, he was National Secretary of Justice when, monocratically, the minister annulled all evidence of the company’s leniency agreement and suspended a fine worth R$10 billion stipulated in the company’s leniency agreement. The counterattack against Lava Jato was not motivated by irregularities and procedural deviations, which not only continued to exist, but multiplied and increased in scale.
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