A recent study on reported corruption and related criminality in Portugal has shown, regarding the Ministries and Services with the highest number of defendants, that the Local Administration is the main focus of reported corruption between the years 2004-2008. Built using data from the Project “The Study of Corruption in Portugal: The Judicial Reality – A Sociological Approach”, based on a sample composed of the proceedings brought between the year 2004 and 2008 for the crime of corruption and related offenses (N=345) and a sample of the defendants constituted in the context of these same criminal proceedings (N=352), the present study focuses on the analysis of the interdependence between the multiple indicators of sociological characterization of the corrupt agents and the criminal proceedings brought and intends to ascertain which configurations are defined in the context of local governance. This work also seeks to reflect on the causes that condition the occurrence and persistence of corruption in local government and its implications for social capital and the quality and performance of democratic local governance.
Year of publication: 2011
Author: Inês Glória Simões Lima
University: Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon
