On the anti-corruption discourse: analysis from a perspective of the studies of Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni

Abstract

Cases of political corruption of a previously unknown scale have been discovered in Brazil in the last two decades and have received enormous attention, especially from the press and authorities responsible for criminal investigation. In response, anti-corruption speeches broke out, some of them in a messianic tone, promising simple solutions, but without clarifying at what price. Faced with this "new" defense against corruption, the following problem arises: are these really innovative discourses or are they a renewal, with a new guise, of an old discourse that has been driving the increase of punitive power for centuries, to cost of restricting the fundamental rights of the entire population, but without ever reaching the promised end? To answer this question, this article, using Zaffaroni's investigation of the criminological discourse archetypes as a reference, developed an analysis of one of these new anti-corruption discourses: the defense of the “10 measures against corruption” proposed by brazilian federal prosecutors. The study was carried out through the discursive analysis of the arguments presented in defense of these measures, understood within their legal-political context, using as theoretical reference three works by Zaffaroni. It has been shown that this discourse repeats the same archetype that has been renewed in Criminal Law for centuries, with the following structure: it identifies an emergency (corruption); argues that this emergency would be an evil capable of destroying society (corruption as a fundamental cause of serious social and economic problems); associates this evil with a group of people (the corrupt ones) who, however, resemble the entire population (all are potentially corrupt); and, therefore, demands an increase in punitive power (measures strengthen the powers of the Prosecution Service and weaken fundamental rights, especially defense rights) for greater criminal control of the entire population (measures would apply to all crimes, not just to corruption).