Anti-political class bias in corruption sentencing

Paniagua, Victoria ORCID: 0000-0003-3173-0260, Doria-Vilaça, Luiz and Morucci, Marco (2024) Anti-political class bias in corruption sentencing. American Journal of Political Science. ISSN 0092-5853 (In Press)

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Abstract

Are corruption trials that involve the highest ranks in the public sphere and large private companies biased against some groups? Existing research predominantly focuses on corruption prosecutions of politicians, leaving unresolved the extent to which judges apply differential treatment when convicting and sentencing the political class compared to other defendants, including those in the private sector. To address this gap, we investigate judicial bias within Brazil’s famous “Operação Lava Jato”, the largest corruption investigation carried out in history. Leveraging an original database that traces the trajectory of the universe of the 3,154 cases of Lava Jato, we show that judges’ sentencing decisions were not governed by a partisan logic. Instead, judges were more inclined to impose longer prison times and higher fines to elected politicians when compared to all other defendants, particularly those from the private sector. We interpret these findings as evidence of anti-political class bias.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15405907
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	J Political Science
Date Deposited:	03 May 2024 14:18
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2024 09:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122905

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