Civil Society Movements and Corruption in Brazil

By: V-Dem Staff
Oct 10, 2016


The V-Dem dataset includes variables measuring the strength of anti-system movements in civil society and executive corruption. The Civil Society Anti-system Movement variable measures how threatened the current regime is by civil society organizations who wish to change the polity in fundamental ways. This variable ranges from 0 to 4, with 4 indicative of the highest level of threat. The Executive Corruption Index estimates how frequently members of the executive, or their agents, grant favors in exchange for bribes, kickbacks, or other material inducements. Higher values indicate that this type of behavior happens more often.

By using the V-Dem online analysis Country Graph tool we can see the development of these two Indicators in Brazil. While anti-system movements have fluctuated over Brazil’s history, executive corruption has remained relatively consistent, but one has to wonder if recent increases in anti-system movements, as represented by the V-Dem measure, are somehow related to the corruption allegations. As V-Dem continues to update the data to cover all countries through the current year, we hope to find an answer to this question!

You can find out more about corruption or analyze other indicators for Brazil, or any other country, by using the online analysis tool at v-dem.net.