Corrup？？o e reforma institucional no Brasil, 1988-2008

how do institutions foster corruption? how does the unveiling of corruption scandals affect institutional reform? this essay takes the brazilian budget process from 1988 onwards as a case study in an attempt to answer both these questions. in this period, two corruption scandals in the budget process were uncovered: the "budget dwarves" in 1993-1994 and "budget leeches" in 2006. the first scandal is a classic example of how institutional centralization, coupled with informality, results in corruption; the second scandal illustrates how corrupt actors work within a partially decentralized institutional scenario. both scandals resulted in partial, and somewhat effective, institutional reforms.