...And Justice for All

Costa Rica and Argentina are two countries that form part of the vast region called Latin America. These two countries differ significantly in levels of corruption according to Transparency Internationals annual index of corruption globally. Why is this so and why are certain countries more corrupt than others? This overarching question has inspired this thesis. The study more specifically aims to answer why former president Rafael Calderón in Costa Rica was convicted and had to serve time for his involvement in a corruption scandal, whilst the opposite occurred in Argentina whose former president Carlos Menem also was involved in a corruption scandal. The study looks at two cases of corruption scandals with differing outcomes and it aims to test whether two theories developed by Viviana Stechina in her doctoral thesis “Conditions for Corruption” has the ability to explain these separate outcomes. The theories focus on institutional arrangements and how they create incentives for corrupt behaviour by way of the relative strength and relationship between the governmental organs that traditionally fall under the banner of separation of powers: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The study indicates that the theories in question indeed bears the capacity to explain the differing outcome of the judicial process in each country and as a consequence, perhaps levels of corruption in a more general sense