Salcedo-Albar

Macro-Corruption and Institutional Co-Optation Salcedo-Albar

The judicial case popularly known as "Lava Jato" is not just another scandal of corruption in which considerable public resources (billion of dollars) were unlawfully diverted and appropiated by poweful individuals. It is a systemic and transnational networks of corruption that co-opted outstanding Brazilian institutions in order to satisfy few powerful exclusive interests. Therefore, the "Lava Jato" is herein conceptualized as a network of macro-corruption and institutional co-optation; an intricate and perverse system planned and established by political parties and politicians, high ranking public officers and public entities, and private companies and business people to unlawfully divers and "lunder" large amounts of public resources in favor of powerful private interests. This book is a detailed analysis of the "Lava Jato" network, its structure and operative functioning. It also proposes societal reforms and innovative conceptual and methodological approaches that could contribute to effectively understand, prevent and confront complex networks of macro-corruption and institutional co-optation, as those being reproduced nowadays in many regions.