Fernando Filgueiras

Esta obra pretende elaborar uma teoria da corrupção nas democracias contemporâneas. O campo político apresenta uma relação intrínseca com a questão da moralidade, de acordo com a discussão de valores e normas que o estruturam. Nesse sentido, a corrupção só pode ser compreendida como discurso, e, enquanto tal, possui uma natureza flexível e plástica que demanda uma compreensão mais abrangente dos valores do interesse público. A corrupção necessita ser discutida por um viés normativo e não se restringe ao seu caráter monetário, tão propalado no capitalismo contemporâneo, mas está ligada a uma discussão ética preocupada com as interfaces da moralidade política e sua experimentação na esfera pública.

Organizado por Leonardo Avritzer e Fernando Filgueiras, Corrupção e sistema político no Brasil preenche uma lacuna no estudo do tema. Além de comprovar que a corrupção é vista como um dos problemas do país na visão de seus cidadãos, o estudo expõe os mecanismos institucionais de combates ao problema desenvolvidos no Brasil ao longo dos últimos 20 anos.

“Este livro busca apresentar ao leitor uma concepção mais abrangente da corrupção, que não fique retida apensa em seu aspecto jurídico-político, mas que sirva, sobretudo, à discussão prática para o aprimoramento e a instrumentalização das instituições a fim de controlar essa patologia que corrói os valores da democracia”, explicam os organizadores.

Os textos retratam investigações desenvolvidas no Centro de Referência do Interesse público (Crip) da UFMG e de alguns parceiros da instituição. As pesquisas tratam a questão da corrupção pelo prisma da cultura política e das instituições.

Entre outras conclusões, elas mostram que o combate ao problema tornou-se uma política de estado e não de governos particulares. Outra constatação importante é que a proliferação de escândalos na verdade indicam a força das instituições democráticas e não seu contrário.

Esta edição da série Cadernos Adenauer tem como tema a ética pública e o controle da corrupção. Os capítulos estão estruturados a partir de dois enfoques complementares: o desenvolvimento de valores nas organizações públicas e o desenvolvimento institucional das organizações responsáveis pelo controle público da corrupção.

The reliance on courts for addressing public policy questions and political controversies is a central phenomenon in contemporary democracies. The judicialization of politics is the result of a shift in core issues regarding democratic legitimacy, both in the sphere of institution building as well as political culture. Social
justice arose as a central variable in the legitimacy of  democracies, becoming vital in establishing support towards democratic political systems. This article explores the relation between perceptions on justice, judicialization of politics and how the agency of judicial institutions impacts dissatisfaction with democracy. Based on a survey carried out in the metropolitan regions of Belo Horizonte, Goiânia, Porto Alegre and Recife, it is argued that the discontent towards political institutions in Brazil does not justify the ongoing judicialization process since the perceptions on inequalities place the Judiciary within the citizens’ critical stance towards institutions. Just like other representative institutions, the Judiciary has not been able
to mitigate the perceptions on inequalities and the ineffectiveness of the empire of law, being therefore unable to provide a satisfactory performance in regards to the normative ends of contemporary notions of democratic legitimacy and citizenship.

This article addresses the issue of corruption in Brazil and comes from the contradiction, existing within the Brazilian public opinion, between moral obligations and the meanings of political corruption. The article discusses the concept of corruption and how it is built in Brazil, and also builds a theoretical perspective on corruption through empirical analysis. It is based on the results of the survey on corruption, conducted in year 2008.

This article addresses the gap between the problem of justice and the problem of legitimacy in contemporary political philosophy. This gap between justice and legitimacy is
related to the premise that political justice is inconsistent and incompatible with conceptions of the common good. We propose that the concept of public interest may represent reconciliation between justice and legitimacy, ensuring above all that a conception of justice must be primarily political.

This article investigates, from a normative critique, the liberal perspective and the communitarian perspective of the concept of justice, speculating on the role of the state in contemporary democracies. The investigation of the liberal perspective and
the communitarian perspective of the concept of justice tend to indicate a republican critique of the depoliticisation process promoted by the concept of political justice and social justice. This article advocates a political conception of justice based on
the existence of a republican state and the popular image of the origin of constitutional principles and rules.

This article analyzes the relationship between the development of new public administration and the perception of corruption in Brazil under democratic rule. We contend that the reason for the persistently widespread perception of corruption in Brazil is that despite important changes in the institutions with oversight of the Brazilian state, such administrative reforms have assigned limited priority to frontline civil servants. Organizational progress in the new public administration has focused on upper-level public employees, with little impact on the middle and lower echelons, so that practices like graft and bribery between public employees and ordinary citizens are still commonplace. Thus, the management changes have failed to produce a perception of improvement in accountability, and corruption is still seen as common, even within a context of administrative changes.

This article compares the topic of corruption in politics according to Montesquieu and Tocqueville, in order to understand its concept and scope together with the modern political order. In view of theoretical approaches, the study states that Montesquieu and Tocqueville start from the problem of the decline of virtue to think about the problem of corruption in modern republics, in order to find different solutions in the normative plan of their political philosophies. The contribution of this article is to think about the scope of corruption in modern politics, with an eye to conceptual innovation and the methodological approach of Montesquieu and Tocqueville for modern political philosophy.

This article discusses the issue of trust as a central element for structuring virtuous institutions under a republican order. The article argues that trust can be a central concept for republican thinking, since in the contemporary world the issue of virtues is based on the excellency not of citizens, but of political institutions. As opposed to the idea of interpersonal trust, the article deals with another aspect of the trust issue, defended by modernization theory. According to Simmel's positions and John Dewey's democratic experimentalism, the argument presents another modality of the trust issue as social cement and the central element in the construction of the Republic in contemporary politics.

Western countries have experienced a growing demand for accountability as fundamental element for democratization of the State. This demand has occasioned a case for transparency of public institutions and public policies implemented by the State. This defense, in turn, aims to make governments accountable to the public. The objective of this article is to formulate a critical perspective for what we name as "policy of transparency"in favor that we name "policy of publicity". This last aproach aims to provide the normative argument for the concept of the  accountability, to deepen democracy and strengthen the process of public management.