Por Uma “Nova Imaginação Política”: A Interpretação de Gestores Públicos de Uberlândia Sobre Corrupção.

Abstract

In Brazil, as soon as after the promulgation of the Brazil’s Federal Constitution of 1988, a series of corruption scandals began to appear in the news of the country, such as the "Anões do Orçamento" (SODRÉ, ALVES, 2010); social security fraud in the case of "Jorgina de Freitas" (MESQUISTA; MOISES; ELDASI, 2015); the deviation of funds from the Regional Labor Court of São Paulo (1992-1998), the case "Nicolau dos Santos Neto"; and the diversion of funds from the Superintendency of the Development of the Amazon (SUDAM) in 1997. In the 2000’s, there was a highlight in the media about the “Mensalão” scandal (2005-2006) and in the decade of 2010, Lava Jato and Zelotes which became known as large corruption cases that, according to Jancsics (2014), generally involve powerful politicians and organizations that extract public resources for their own benefit, impacting on social structures. There are still many cases of bribery that are practical examples of small corruption, which also bring financial losses to organizations and society. In this understanding, there is a distinction between the manifestation of corruption in the value judgment, encompassing its manifestations in political and cultural forms, and the judgments of necessity, with the social and economic forms of manifestation of the phenomenon. The breakdown of the functionalist hegemony of organizational studies allowed the use of different perspectives on this area of study, including the development of critical theories, which allowed the entry of thinkers such as the philosopher Michel Foucault. In this work, we discuss Michel Foucault's notion of a "new political imagination" in the face of the phenomenon of corruption. The action of this "new political imagination" stems from the need for a rupture with what is intrinsic to the individual, since thought, when elaborated on the basis of beliefs that do not actually have the evidence they appear to have, should be changed to from awakening to a critical attitude. This attitude will lead to the emergence of a "new imagination", which is essential to any transformation. From this understanding, our research proposes to analyze the interpretation of public managers in the city of Uberlândia on corruption, to understand its (dis) articulation with the notion of "new political imagination" proposed by Foucault. For this, we interviewed public managements. As a result, we raised three discursive categories from the perspectives of the interviewees about their perception of corruption: corruption as an exchange for obtaining personal benefits; corruption as a breach of norms; and corruption as a social cost. Concerning the understanding of the perpetuation of corruption in organizations, five discursive patterns have been found that may be related to the fact, being: the influence of the media in the perception of the phenomenon; the denial of the existence of corruption in the professional environment; the professional environment as provider of corruption situations; the relationship of corruption with organizations; and the understanding of the role of the state and its relation to the maintenance of corruption. Regarding the characteristics of management practices observed in the Uberlândia region, the research participants indicated paternalism, patrimonialism, elitism and “coronelismo”. Both the perception of power and the understanding of what would be an attitude of resistance to corruption in the view of the interviewees, we envisage the presence of a dominant discourse in the speech of the public managers that prevents the occurrence of the awakening to a critical attitude and, consequently, to a change of attitude that results in a "new political imagination" as thought by Foucault.