Corruption in Argentina: Towards an Institutional Approach by Natalia A Volosin

Author:Natalia A Volosin [Volosin, Natalia A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Caribbean & Latin American, Developing & Emerging Countries, Social Science, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9780367338718
Google: SEmqDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 45914202
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Unlike Menem, whose executive corruption concentrated the number of private bribers on three clear levels, the Kirchners moved Argentina’s structural corruption closer to the kleptocratic end. The bribers base was indeed much more extended, while the bribees remained concentrated at the top.

Many have claimed that the extension of corruption during this period was due to Kirchner’s statism and greater control of the economy. They argue that state interventions (price controls, regulations, protectionism, discretionary use of subsidies, etc.) led to both corruption and waste.43 Some even went as far as holding that the Kirchners’ statism was not ideological, but corruption-oriented, meaning that they chose it not because they were convinced that the economic model was necessary to, say, protect the poor or defend sovereign interests, but rather because it expanded rent-extraction possibilities. While that statement can only be assumed, the Kirchners’ ambivalence on the ownership of YPF and the suspected corruption that tainted each change they made or supported, from full privatization in 1993 to a partial] renationalization in favor of a close ally in 2008, and a full expropriation and nationalization in 2012 are quite striking.

To be sure, state capitalism might be inherently bad and even yield authoritarian practices in a weak democracy. However, when it comes to corruption, the connection with state intervention falls prey to the public-sector bias referred to in Chapter 2. There are many examples of Welfarist states that outstand for their integrity (i.e., the Nordic countries),44 whereas more purely capitalist societies are not necessarily free from kleptocratic features, as Donald Trump’s administration seems to prove.45 It is one thing, then, to point that state capitalism in a country already affected by structural corruption can transform a kleptocrat facing private monopoly power (Menem) into a kleptocrat facing a larger number of bribers (the Kirchners).46 It is a wholly different thing to assert, in a vacuum, that interventionist policies necessarily lead to kleptocracy.

The kleptocratic nature of this stage is clearly exhibited in the Kirchners’ enrichment. From 2003 to 2015, the couple’s acknowledged assets grew more than 800%.47 Both Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández were charged with illicit enrichment during their time in office, but several federal judges acquitted them. A new case launched in 2017 is investigating Cristina Fernández for illicit enrichment from 2009 to 2015.48 The Kirchners, their family members, and other officials were also acquitted for the irregular acquisition of fiscal lands in Santa Cruz at ridiculous values, which they then sold for millions. The provincial prosecutor was no other than Natalia Mercado, the Kirchners’ niece, who was confirmed in the case although the accusation involved her uncles, her mother, and herself.49

The illicit enrichment acquittals deserve some detail. In the first case, investigating Néstor Kirchner’s enrichment from 1995 to 2004, federal judge Julián Ercolini acquitted and federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano did not appeal, at the same time that his son was allegedly kidnapped.50 The same prosecutor also did not appeal an acquittal decision by federal judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral in an investigation against both Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández for illicit enrichment from 2005 to 2007.

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