Institutional development and public control: Analyzing the Brazilian accountability system.

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the institutional development process of accountability institutions in Brazil. Scholars have identified an incremental development process of horizontal accountability institutions in Brazil, stimulating an important process in democracy. Our argument is that the incremental development process of accountability institutions was not followed by systemic developments able to encompass all accountability institutions. The reason for this is that, in spite of incremental advances, there has been no development regarding the procedural ecology of accountability institutions, thus hampering coordinated and cooperative actions between institutions. We analyzed the procedural flow from the Public Sweepstakes Program of the Comptroller General in Brazil as well as the performance of the institutions of the accountability system. We also conducted interviews with the leaders of accountability institutions in order to address the issue of cooperation and strategic coordination of the system of institutions.