The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a US law that ostensibly seeks to reduce transnational corruption through penalizing individuals/entities who bribe foreign officials. The purpose of this study is to critically assess the FCPA and examine how it has been applied within Latin America. To do so, we conduct a case study of FCPA bribery prosecutions in Latin America over a 20-year period, 1997–2016. Results show that only twenty-two individuals were prosecuted during this period, with penalties that amount to little more than a “slap on the wrist.” Consequently, the FCPA can be viewed as a symbolic policy in the larger “anti-corruption movement” in that it purports to battle corruption but does not, in fact, do so.
ArmstrongM. M.MillerM. K.GriffinT. (2014). An examination of sex offender registration and notification laws: Can community sentiment lead to ineffective laws? In Handbook of Community Sentiment (vols. 239–51): Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1899-7_17
2.
AuletteJ. R.MichalowskiR. (1993). Fire in hamlet: A case study of a state-corporate crime. In TunnellK. D. (Ed.), Political crime in contemporary America: A critical approach. Garland.
3.
BittleS.QuaidJ. (2022) Captured or complicit? SNC-lavalin and the normalization of corruption in Canada. In Corporate rules: The real World of business regulation in Canada. James Lorimer and Company. (pp. 142–159).
4.
BöhringerC.VogtC. (2004). “The dismantling of a breakthrough: The Kyoto Protocol as symbolic policy” European. Journal of Political Economy, 20(3), 597–617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2004.02.004
5.
BratsisP. (2014). Political corruption in the age of transnational capitalism: From the relative autonomy of the state to the white man’s burden. Historical Materialism, 22(1), 105–128. https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206x-12341334
6.
BukovanskyM. (2006). The hollowness of anti-corruption discourse. Review of International Political Economy, 13(2), 181–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290600625413
7.
CalavitaK. (1983). The demise of the occupational safety and health administration: A case study in symbolic action. Social Problems, 30(4), 437–448.
8.
ClinardM.YeagerP. C. (1980). Corporate crime. Free Press.
9.
CraggW.WoofW. (2002). The U.S. Foreign corrupt practices act: A study of its effectiveness. Business and Society Review107(1), 98–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/0045-3609.00129
10.
DiMiceliD. (2014). Navigating FCPA compliance in Mexico. ProQuest.
11.
DouglasJ. D.JohnsonJ. M. (1977). Official deviance: Readings in malfeasance, misfeasance, and other forms of corruption. JB Lippincott.
12.
EliasR. (1983). The symbolic politics of victim compensation. Victimology, 8(1–2), 213–224.
13.
ErmannM. D.LundmanR. J. (1978). Deviant acts by complex organizations: Deviance and social control at the organizational level of analysis. The Sociological Quarterly, 19(1), 55–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1978.tb02171.x
14.
GilensM.PageB. I. (2014). Testing theories of american politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564–581. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592714001595
15.
GrattetR.JennessV. (2008). Transforming symbolic law into organizational action: Hate crime policy and law enforcement practice. Social Forces, 87(1), 501–527. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0122
16.
GreaniasG. C.DuaneW. (1982). The foreign corrupt practices act: Anatomy of a Statute. Lexington Books.
17.
GriffinT.MillerM. K. (2008) Child Abduction, AMBER Alert, and ‘Crime Control Theater (vol. 33, pp. 159–176). Criminal Justice Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016808316778
18.
GuttermanE. (2015). Easier done than said: Transnational bribery, norm resonance, and the origins of the U.S. Foreign corrupt practices act (pp. 109–128). Foreign Policy Analysis.
19.
HeidenheimerA. J.JohnstonM. (Eds.), (2002). Political corruption: Concepts and contexts (3d ed.). Transaction Publishers.
20.
HeywoodP. M. (2018). Combating corruption in the twenty-first century: New approaches. Dædalus, 147(3), 83–97. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_00504
21.
HowardG. J. (1999). Garbage laws and symbolic policy: Governmental responses to the problem of waste in the United States. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 10(2), 257–299.
Law SchoolS. (2023). Foreign corrupt practices act Clearinghouse. Enforcement actions. Stanford Law School.
24.
LessigL. (2011). Republic, lost: How money corrupts congress—and a plan to stop it: Twelve.
25.
MillerS. (2010). The moral foundations of social institutions: A philosophical study. Cambridge University Press.
26.
MyersM. A. (1989). Symbolic policy and the sentencing of drug offenders. Law and Society Review, 23(2), 295–316. https://doi.org/10.2307/3053719
27.
PassasN. (1998). Structural analysis of corruption: The role of criminogenic asymmetries. Transnational Organized Crime, 4(1), 42–55.
28.
PearceF. (1976). The crimes of the powerful: Marxism, crime and deviance. Pluto Press.
29.
PeoplesC. D. (2020). The undermining of American democracy: How campaign contributions corrupt our system and harm us all. Routledge.
30.
PeoplesC. D.SuttonJ. E. (2015). Congressional bribery as state-corporate crime: A social network analysis. Crime, Law and Social Change, 64(2), 103–125.
Rose-AckermanS. (1999). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. Cambridge University Press.
33.
RossJ. I. (2000). Varieties of state crime and its control. Criminal Justice Press.
34.
RotheD. L. (2009). State criminality: The crime of all crimes. Lexington Books.
35.
SampleL. L.EvansM. K.AndersonA. L. (2011). Sex offender community notification laws: Are their effects symbolic or instrumental in nature?Criminal Justice Policy Review, 22(1), 27–49.
36.
SampsonS. (2010). The anti-corruption industry: From movement to institution. In Global Crime (11, pp. 261–278). Taylor & Francis.
37.
SniderL. (2000). the sociology of corporate crime: An obituary (or: Whose knowledge claims have legs?). Theoretical Criminology, 4(2), 169–206.
38.
StolzB. A. (1983). Congress and capital punishment: An exercise in symbolic politics. Law and Policy Quarterly, 5(2), 157–180.
39.
SutherlandE. H. (1945). Is “white collar crime” crime?”. American Sociological Review, 10(2), 132–139. https://doi.org/10.2307/2085628
TombsS. (2012). State-corporate symbiosis in the production of crime and harm. The State Crime Journal, 1(2), 170–195.
44.
WarrenM. E. (2004). What does corruption mean in a democracy?American Journal of Political Science, 48(2), 328–343. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519886
45.
WeismannM. F. (2009). The foreign corrupt practices act: The failure of the self-regulatory model of corporate governance in the global business environment. Journal of Business Ethics, 88(4), 615–661. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9966-y
46.
WeismannM. F.BuscagliaC. A.PetersonJ. (2014). The foreign corrupt practices act: Why it fails to deter bribery as a global market entry strategy: JBE. Journal of Business Ethics, 123(4), 591–619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-2012-8
ZimringF. E.JohnsonD. T. (2005). On the comparative study of corruption. British Journal of Criminology, 45(6), 793–809. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azi042
