Papers by Fernanda Odilla
American Behavioral Scientist, 2024
This article explores the advantages and constraints affecting anti-corruption grassroots initiat... more This article explores the advantages and constraints affecting anti-corruption grassroots initiatives that employ the “naming and shaming” strategy. It questions why activists choose such a confrontational approach while examining the cases of two Brazilian anti-corruption bottom-up initiatives. Both fight corruption by deploying bots to assist in auditing congressional members’ expenses, and then use social media to expose their suspicious findings. Findings, based on a qualitative analysis, show that publicly exposing those who misuse public money was a tactic adopted only when the expected response from law enforcement and anti-corruption authorities fell short. This study suggests that having a participatory accountability system is insufficient and considered disappointing if no inquiries and sanctions follow civic action. As an unforeseen effect, the digital exposure of officeholders garnered media attention and expanded the initiatives’ support base. Nevertheless, activists acknowledge the risks associated with their belligerent activities and the challenges of financing, maintaining engagement, and expanding the scope of their actions, despite the high expectations that digital technologies would reduce costs and support collective action.
Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption Contexts, Platforms and Data of Anti-Corruption Technologies Worldwide, 2024
In the past two decades, Brazil has witnessed concerned citizens engaging
in citizenship audits, ... more In the past two decades, Brazil has witnessed concerned citizens engaging
in citizenship audits, organising social observatories, delivering training for
using open data, pressuring for better governmental transparency, developing
digital platforms and, more recently, using ‘civic bots’ (some of them based
on artificial intelligence (AI) technology) to hold governments and politicians
accountable. In this period, civil society also deployed more traditional and
contentious public pressure tactics and e-tactics, such as street demonstrations,
advocacy, e-petitions, uploading hashtags, and overflowing public officials’
email boxes to mobilise people and influence the policy-making process in an
attempt to improve anti-corruption and accountability mechanisms. By providing
an overview of these fertile, creative, and heterogeneous anti-corruption
and pro-accountability civil society initiatives emerging since the late 1990s
in Brazil, this chapter explores how the paths of digital technologies and
anti-corruption civil society initiatives have developed and crossed in the
struggle for more transparency and integrity, and less corruption.
Minds and Machines, 2024
This article discusses the potential sources and consequences of unfairness in artificial intelli... more This article discusses the potential sources and consequences of unfairness in artificial intelligence (AI) predictive tools used for anti-corruption efforts. Using the examples of three AI-based anti-corruption tools from Brazil-risk estimation of corrupt behaviour in public procurement, among public officials, and of female straw candidates in electoral contests-it illustrates how unfairness can emerge at the infrastructural, individual, and institutional levels. The article draws on interviews with law enforcement officials directly involved in the development of anticorruption tools, as well as academic and grey literature, including official reports and dissertations on the tools used as examples. Potential sources of unfairness include problematic data, statistical learning issues, the personal values and beliefs of developers and users, and the governance and practices within the organisations in which these tools are created and deployed. The findings suggest that the tools analysed were trained using inputs from past anti-corruption procedures and practices and based on common sense assumptions about corruption, which are not necessarily free from unfair disproportionality and discrimination. In designing the ACTs, the developers did not reflect on the risks of unfairness, nor did they prioritise the use of specific technological solutions to identify and mitigate this type of problem. Although the tools analysed do not make automated decisions and only support human action, their algorithms are not open to external scrutiny.
Big Data & Society, 2023
Developed by tech-savvy citizens, Rosie is a bot that autonomously checks the public spending of ... more Developed by tech-savvy citizens, Rosie is a bot that autonomously checks the public spending of elected representatives of the Brazilian Lower Chamber and uses Twitter to engage peoplein discussing suspicious findings. Rosie is the most visible face of Operação Serenata de Amor (Operation Love Serenade), a data-enabled activism initiative that revolves around the creation, use and dissemination of open data to hold politicians accountable and empower citizens to react against the misuse of public funds. The article draws on an original data set – including interviews, participant online observation notes and secondary qualitative materials – to examine Operação Serenata de Amor, focusing on how material and symbolic elements related to both human and non-human actors shape the organisational patterns of this type of initiative. The findings suggest that there are three organisational patterns, each with further specific challenges, based on the presence of three modes of participation that depend on different types of engagement with digital technologies and data. Findings indicate that data-enabled activism can emerge with typical characteristics and values of tech startups, such as the goal of creating a sustainable budget and providing strategic content by validating it with user feedback, while also retaining some traits of online activism, such as ad hoc and temporal networks of highly autonomous actors concerned with specific contentious issues. In this respect, the eventual demobilisation of Operação Serenata de Amor's initiators due to commercial values and struggles to maintain it active and engaging can be seen as a cautionary tale for data-enabled activism, particularly for initiatives closely associated with civic innovation and social tech startups.
Crime, Law and Social Change
Countries have been developing and deploying anti-corruption tools based on artificial intelligen... more Countries have been developing and deploying anti-corruption tools based on artificial intelligence with hopes of them having positive capabilities. Yet, we still lack empirical analyses of these automated systems designed to identify and curb corruption. Hence, this article explores novel data on 31 bottom-up and top-down initiatives in Brazil, presented as a case study. Methodologically, it uses a qualitative analysis and draws on secondary data and interviews to assess the most common features, usages and constraints of these tools. Data collected are scrutinised under a new conceptual framework that considers how these tools operate, who created them for what purpose, who uses and monitors these tools, what types of corruption they are targeting, and what their tangible outcomes are. Findings suggest that in Brazil, AI-based anti-corruption technology has been tailored by tech-savvy civil servants working for law enforcement agencies and by concerned citizens with tech skills to...
King's College London, 2020
This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucr... more This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucrats enforced between January 2003 and November 2014, when 5,005 expulsive sanctions were enforced, 68.5% of which concerned acts of corruption. The analysis and discussion also integrate qualitative data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews
with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non corruption-related penalties. In light of the self-protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel
comfortable in the role of corruption fighters, the article advances an argument on ‘convenient accountability’—a kind of institutional abdication combined with a reluctance for peer monitoring, with outcomes that can be described as satisficing for integrity agents. This institutional aspect poses a risk to internal disciplinary systems and increases dependence upon external actors of accountability, compromising the efficiency of both.
Crime Law Social Change, 2023
Countries have been developing and deploying anti-corruption tools based on artificial intelligen... more Countries have been developing and deploying anti-corruption tools based on artificial intelligence with hopes of them having positive capabilities. Yet, we still lack empirical analyses of these automated systems designed to identify and curb corruption. Hence, this article explores novel data on 31 bottom-up and top-down initiatives in Brazil, presented as a case study. Methodologically, it uses a qualitative analysis and draws on secondary data and interviews to assess the most common features, usages and constraints of these tools. Data collected are scrutinised under a new conceptual framework that considers how these tools operate, who created them for what purpose, who uses and monitors these tools, what types of corruption they are targeting, and what their tangible outcomes are. Findings suggest that in Brazil, AI-based anti-corruption technology has been tailored by tech-savvy civil servants working for law enforcement agencies and by concerned citizens with tech skills to take over the key tasks of mining and crosschecking large datasets, aiming to monitor, identify, report and predict risks and flag suspicions related to clear-cut unlawful cases. The target is corruption in key governmental functions, mainly public spending. While most of the governmental tools still lack transparency, bottom-up initiatives struggle to expand their scope due to high dependence on and limited access to open data. Because this new technology is seen as supporting human action, a low level of concern related to biased codes has been observed.
Partecipazione e Conflitto, Nov 16, 2021
This article investigates the role of digital media in mechanisms that sustain the achievement of... more This article investigates the role of digital media in mechanisms that sustain the achievement of social movement outcomes during key phases of mobilizations that aim to impact policymaking. It does so by comparing two anti-corruption initiatives in Brazil that became legislative bills through popular petition and included the employment of digital media to support them: the Ficha Limpa (or Clean State Law) and the Ten Measures Against Corruption (TMAC) campaigns. Based on in-depth interviews with key activists and secondary sources, including an analysis of the campaigns' digital media content, this study evaluates three types of outcomes in the political realm: access, agenda, and policy responsiveness. Although both anticorruption initiatives elicited public preference and placed their legal inputs in the public agenda of the political system, they were not equally successful in converting their ideas into new legislation. The Ten Measures was a campaign that occurred when the digital affordances for civil society actors were considerably higher, but it did not achieve positive outcomes as the Ficha Limpa did. This article suggests that initiatives focusing more on online mobilization strategies without a clear advocacy approach to negotiate with (and pressure) public officials do not seem to be enough to promote policy changes.
The Politics of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Latin America, 2021
Revista Direito GV, 2021
Before the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, candidate Jair Bolsonaro offered a bold message... more Before the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, candidate Jair Bolsonaro offered a bold message on corruption control. Among his promises, Bolsonaro vowed to promote government transparency, dismiss any member of his team accused of corruption, and defend the country’s institutions of accountability. Bolsonaro also offered to support a once-popular legislative reform proposal known as the Ten Measures Against Corruption. However, it is worth cautioning that anticorruption as a rhetorical device has been a near-permanent feature of the Brazilian political landscape. In this article, we seek to compare Bolsonaro’s campaign promises with his early actions as president. The evidence shows that, months after the 2018 elections, President Bolsonaro has failed the anticorruption mandate on which he was elected.
Politics and Governance, 2020
This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucr... more This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucrats enforced between January 2003 and November 2014, when 5,005 expulsive sanctions were enforced, 68.5% of which concerned acts of corruption. The analysis and discussion also integrate qualitative data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non-corruption-related penalties. In light of the self‐protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel comfortable in the role of corruption fighter...
In March 2014 a corruption scandal emerged in Brazil with unprecedented political and judicial re... more In March 2014 a corruption scandal emerged in Brazil with unprecedented political and judicial repercussions. Dubbed the ‘Car Wash’ (Lava Jato in Portuguese), the investigation has uncovered large-scale bribery, kickbacks, and money laundering involving the state-run oil company Petrobras. This paper looks in depth at the mechanics involved in the corruption flows, presenting a theoretical model to discuss the links between campaign finance, state capture, political exploitation, and overcharged public contracts channelled back to campaigns, politicians, parties and senior bureaucrats. Although dozens of high profile politicians and businessmen have now been jailed, one of the major repercussions of this investigation is the Brazilian Supreme Court decision to ban corporate donations to electoral campaigns. Using analytical narrative based on secondary data analysis, such as campaign finance records, government payments orders, and police and prosecutors’ reports, this paper also qu...
Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2021
This article investigates the role of digital media in mechanisms that sustain the achievement of... more This article investigates the role of digital media in mechanisms that sustain the achievement of social movement outcomes during key phases of mobilizations that aim to impact policymaking. It does so by comparing two anti-corruption initiatives in Brazil that became legislative bills through popular petition and included the employment of digital media to support them: the Ficha Limpa (or Clean State Law) and the Ten Measures Against Corruption (TMAC) campaigns. Based on in-depth interviews with key activists and secondary sources, including an analysis of the campaigns' digital media content, this study evaluates three types of outcomes in the political realm: access, agenda, and policy responsiveness. Although both anticorruption initiatives elicited public preference and placed their legal inputs in the public agenda of the political system, they were not equally successful in converting their ideas into new legislation. The Ten Measures was a campaign that occurred when the digital affordances for civil society actors were considerably higher, but it did not achieve positive outcomes as the Ficha Limpa did. This article suggests that initiatives focusing more on online mobilization strategies without a clear advocacy approach to negotiate with (and pressure) public officials do not seem to be enough to promote policy changes.
Rev. Direito GV , 2021
Before the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, candidate Jair Bolsonaro offered a bold message... more Before the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, candidate Jair Bolsonaro offered a bold message on corruption control. Among his promises, Bolsonaro vowed to promote government transparency, dismiss any member of his team accused of corruption, and defend the country's institutions of accountability. Bolsonaro also offered to support a once-popular legislative reform proposal known as the Ten Measures Against Corruption. However, it is worth cautioning that anticorruption as a rhetorical device has been a near-permanent feature of the Brazilian political landscape. In this article, we seek to compare Bolsonaro's campaign promises with his early actions as president. The evidence shows that, months after the 2018 elections, President Bolsonaro has failed the anticorruption mandate on which he was elected.
Full paper available here: https://www.scielo.br/j/rdgv/a/SJWZjByhSggXtYnHcXzCK4C/abstract/?lang=en
Politics and Governance, 2020
This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucr... more This exploratory study leverages a major dataset of official penalties against Brazilian bureaucrats enforced between January 2003 and November 2014, when 5,005 expulsive sanctions were enforced, 68.5% of which concerned acts of corruption. The analysis and discussion also integrate qualitative data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non-corruption-related penalties. In light of the self-protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel comfortable in the role of corruption fighters, the article advances an argument on 'convenient accountability'-a kind of institutional abdication combined with a reluctance for peer monitoring, with outcomes that can be described as satisficing for integrity agents. This institutional aspect poses a risk to internal disciplinary systems and increases dependence upon external actors of accountability, compromising the efficiency of both. Link: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2716
BRAZIL BUSINESS BRIEF, 2019
Bureaucratic corruption is just as problematic as political corruption – not only because it affe... more Bureaucratic corruption is just as problematic as political corruption – not only because it affects state capacity and the state’s ability to deliver public services effectively and efficiently, but also because it often ties into largerscale political corruption and potentially elevates the costs of doing business in certain countries. So far, however, bureaucratic corruption around the world has tended to attract less attention than corruption scandals involving politicians – and that is especially the case in Brazil.
WORKING PAPER – Paper presented at the 2019 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association – Boston (EUA) May 24-27, 2019
This study identified the distribution of administrative penalties imposed between 2003 and 2014 ... more This study identified the distribution of administrative penalties imposed between 2003 and 2014 in the federal executive in Brazil, and analyzed which civil servants are most likely to be sanctioned for corruption and which conditions differentiate them from those punished for other serious offences. Statistical analyses were performed on the subsample of sanctioned civil servants using the variables of gender, job tenure, status (career civil servant or occupant of a position of trust), and gross earnings. Analyses also included qualitative data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews with civil servants directly involved with disciplinary sanctions. The study findings showed that those punished most often for corruption were men and those who were not in the first five years of their careers. Holding a special position or earning a bonus also increased the odds of being sanctioned for corruption as well as working for specific government bodies such as the traffic police.
LASA - Barcelona, May 23-26, 2018
Between 2003 and 2014, the number of civil servants working for the Brazilian federal government ... more Between 2003 and 2014, the number of civil servants working for the Brazilian federal government increased by 17.8% (from 485,980 to 572,434). In the same period, the number of disciplinary procedures that resulted in civil servants being punished with dismissals and pension loss more than doubled (from 268 to 548). Around 68% of those severe sanctions were for acts of corruption. To understand these figures, this paper provides historical context and traces, in broad terms, the major administrative transformations in Brazil's federal public administration. These reforms were intended to create a classic Weberian professionalised bureaucracy in which civil servants are recruited through a formal examination system, go into lifelong and hierarchical careers, are subject to special employment laws, as well as to provide the tools for the Brazilian bureaucracy to hold itself accountable. Peers are supposed to investigate themselves and to recommend severe sanctions when a civil servant is found to have engaged in misconduct. The question is whether these administrative reforms have allowed Brazil to build up a corps of professional civil servants that are held accountable, mainly with regard to acts of corruption. If so, then to what extent? This paper draws on evidence from legislation and procedures implemented to investigate and punish civil servants for serious administrative offences, along with findings from 25 semi-structured interviews with individuals directly involved in designing and enforcing disciplinary norms when the Office of the Comptroller General was created in the early 2000s and transformed into an anti-corruption agency within the federal executive. The paper argues that, despite the improvements, there is substantial discretion and corporatist behaviour within the anti-corruption system that is very likely to influence the pattern of sanctions among agencies and to increase dependence on external anti-corruption mechanisms.
Brazil Business Brief. Volume 20, Number 27, January 2017.
This paper focuses on how Brazil designed and put into force a legal instrument that makes compan... more This paper focuses on how Brazil designed and put into force a legal instrument that makes companies strictly liable for domestic and international acts of corruption and highlights the role of external drivers during a 15-year process. It also introduces the concept of 'convenient accountability' which suggests that Brazil has adopted the slowest and cheapest methods in order to address the demands of those who want and those who do not want greater accountability in the case of the new Clean Company Act (Law 12846/2013); also dubbed as 'anti-corruption law'. Despite the apparent force of the civil society in this case of 'pressure from below', until March 2017, the federal government has only punished four companies with administrative sanctions under the new law – none of them are among those investigated by the corruption probe dubbed 'Car Wash' (Lava Jato in Portuguese). An already overwhelmed anti-corruption agency was chosen to enforce the new legislation in the federal and international spheres against companies, some of them being traditional campaign financers and governmental contractors. Hence, it still remains uncertain whether Brazil will effectively enforce its anti-corruption law that, on paper, even exceeds international requirements.
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Papers by Fernanda Odilla
in citizenship audits, organising social observatories, delivering training for
using open data, pressuring for better governmental transparency, developing
digital platforms and, more recently, using ‘civic bots’ (some of them based
on artificial intelligence (AI) technology) to hold governments and politicians
accountable. In this period, civil society also deployed more traditional and
contentious public pressure tactics and e-tactics, such as street demonstrations,
advocacy, e-petitions, uploading hashtags, and overflowing public officials’
email boxes to mobilise people and influence the policy-making process in an
attempt to improve anti-corruption and accountability mechanisms. By providing
an overview of these fertile, creative, and heterogeneous anti-corruption
and pro-accountability civil society initiatives emerging since the late 1990s
in Brazil, this chapter explores how the paths of digital technologies and
anti-corruption civil society initiatives have developed and crossed in the
struggle for more transparency and integrity, and less corruption.
with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non corruption-related penalties. In light of the self-protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel
comfortable in the role of corruption fighters, the article advances an argument on ‘convenient accountability’—a kind of institutional abdication combined with a reluctance for peer monitoring, with outcomes that can be described as satisficing for integrity agents. This institutional aspect poses a risk to internal disciplinary systems and increases dependence upon external actors of accountability, compromising the efficiency of both.
Full paper available here: https://www.scielo.br/j/rdgv/a/SJWZjByhSggXtYnHcXzCK4C/abstract/?lang=en
in citizenship audits, organising social observatories, delivering training for
using open data, pressuring for better governmental transparency, developing
digital platforms and, more recently, using ‘civic bots’ (some of them based
on artificial intelligence (AI) technology) to hold governments and politicians
accountable. In this period, civil society also deployed more traditional and
contentious public pressure tactics and e-tactics, such as street demonstrations,
advocacy, e-petitions, uploading hashtags, and overflowing public officials’
email boxes to mobilise people and influence the policy-making process in an
attempt to improve anti-corruption and accountability mechanisms. By providing
an overview of these fertile, creative, and heterogeneous anti-corruption
and pro-accountability civil society initiatives emerging since the late 1990s
in Brazil, this chapter explores how the paths of digital technologies and
anti-corruption civil society initiatives have developed and crossed in the
struggle for more transparency and integrity, and less corruption.
with civil servants who were integrity enforcers. Despite the rapid increase in the number of penalties enforced over the years, the creation of a robust set of disciplinary norms and an anti-corruption agency have not secured a fully operational horizontal accountability system within the executive. A great variance of corruption control was observed across agencies, manifested through disproportionate enforcement, not only of overall sanctions but also of corruption and non corruption-related penalties. In light of the self-protective behaviour of civil servants, who openly say they do not feel
comfortable in the role of corruption fighters, the article advances an argument on ‘convenient accountability’—a kind of institutional abdication combined with a reluctance for peer monitoring, with outcomes that can be described as satisficing for integrity agents. This institutional aspect poses a risk to internal disciplinary systems and increases dependence upon external actors of accountability, compromising the efficiency of both.
Full paper available here: https://www.scielo.br/j/rdgv/a/SJWZjByhSggXtYnHcXzCK4C/abstract/?lang=en