This research project compares and contrasts two of the largest corruption scandals in recent history, the Italian ‘mani pulite’ (1992-1994) and the Brazilian ‘lava jato’ (2014-present), aiming to offer: (a) an innovative analysis of corruption, corruption scandals and neoliberalism rooted on the political economy of systems of accumulation; and (b) an original account of the contribution of the Italian and Brazilian corruption scandals to the transition to neoliberalism in Italy and the deepening of neoliberal reform in Brazil.

Departing from the prevailing market-fetishising moralism that generally underpins public and scholarly debates on corruption, this research project focuses instead on the social structures, social and economic reproduction processes, and resource allocation mechanisms embedding corruption. This approach rests on the interdisciplinary conversation between political economy and heterodox economics. Thus, examining capitalism as a system of generalised commodity production for profit structured by value creating processes and distribution among distinct and often conflictual classes, this research project analyses the real economic activities, processes, structures and institutions connecting individuals and societies with the goods and services involved in their reproduction.

This research project contributes to knowledge by: (1) challenging conventional narratives positing corruption as an epiphenomenal encroachment on an imaginary perfectly competitive and ‘efficient’ socio-economic system, and (2) offering an original understanding of corruption as a socio-economic phenomenon intrinsically connected to capitalism in general and neoliberalism as its current phase, able to explain why anti-corruption movements often fail to address clientelism. Therefore, this research project’s value in realising the goals of ISRF lies in its advancing the social sciences through the promotion of an innovative mode of inquiry of corruption’s place in the dynamics of long-term economic development, and of corruption scandals as pivotal moments in the transition to neoliberalism.