Universality of political corruption networks

TL;DR

This study reveals that corruption networks in Spain and Brazil share universal structural properties and operate near a critical recidivism threshold, suggesting targeted interventions could effectively reduce organized political crime.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of corruption networks across two countries, identifying universal properties and proposing a model that explains their growth and critical behavior.

Findings

Corruption networks share similar degree distributions and clustering coefficients.

Networks operate near a critical recidivism rate affecting connectivity.

Targeting recidivism could significantly reduce network cohesion.

Abstract

Corruption crimes demand highly coordinated actions among criminal agents to succeed. But research dedicated to corruption networks is still in its infancy and indeed little is known about the properties of these networks. Here we present a comprehensive investigation of corruption networks related to political scandals in Spain and Brazil over nearly three decades. We show that corruption networks of both countries share universal structural and dynamical properties, including similar degree distributions, clustering and assortativity coefficients, modular structure, and a growth process that is marked by the coalescence of network components due to a few recidivist criminals. We propose a simple model that not only reproduces these empirical properties but reveals also that corruption networks operate near a critical recidivism rate below which the network is entirely fragmented and above which it is overly connected. Our research thus indicates that actions focused on decreasing corruption recidivism may substantially mitigate this type of organized crime.