Resumo

One of the intriguing phenomena in democracy is the fact that politicians accused of or condemned for corruption get re-elected or remain in charge. Corruption does not seem to negatively affect the development of political careers. Although there were several attempts to understand the problem, works usually focus on voters’ behavior and try to explain their attitudes. However, there is a lack of literature explaining how political actors understand this phenomenon. This question is important because there are several public declarations in which politicians suggest that corruption is natural behind the scene of public politics.  The project aims to examine narratives about social tolerance to corruption and explains what do political actors think about social tolerance of corruption and how, when and why do they think the phenomenon emerge and spread? This innovative strategy departs from accepting that corruption not only it is spread, but also that is socially tolerated.