O que há de errado com a corrupção?: reflexões sobre a pesquisa e a prática da corrupção e contribuições para o seu ensino na Administração Pública

Abstract

This work contains reflections on research and practice of corruption in Public Administration. These reflections were directed, essentially, to the way scientific research is organized to think about the issue of corruption and the meanings attributed to it. In addition, it presents contributions to teaching about corruption in this same area. The work was divided into three texts. The first text, titled "The Senses of Research on Corruption", conducts an exploratory, revisiting and thematic classification of scientific production on corruption. Its goal was to carry out a brief survey and presentation of the main existing discussions on corruption in the country and abroad. The second text, titled "Corruption as a practice: the contribution of Theodore Schatzki for the construction of a new look at corruption in Public Administration", introduces and presents a form of analysis and study of corruption in public organizations, whose starting point is Theodore Schatzki´s Theory of Practice. In this sense, approaching corruption as a social practice allowed the opposition between this narrative and the traditional discourses established on it, which define corruption sometimes as immoral or as misuse of power to obtain private benefits. The third text, a teaching case entitled "Demystifying corruption: what does Operação Curupira teach us about corruption in public administration?", intended to bring the discussion we held in the first two texts into the classroom. By portraying a corruption scheme involving the extraction, transportation and illegal trade of forest products in the Amazon region, the case resumes the discussion of how corruption is presented and understood by scientific research, international institutions and the media, presenting it in a pedagogical way: the teaching case. We estimate that this work has contributed to enhancing knowledge about corruption in public organizations, providing elements for new studies to investigate ways the practice of corruption is understood and researched in Public Administration.