CORRUPTION IN BRAZIL: A SOCIOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS IN LIGHT OF CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES José Ribamar Tôrres Rodrigues PhD in Education from USP (University of São Paulo) Master's in Education from PUC/SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo) Teacher Training Internship at IUFM in DOUAI/France Former State Undersecretary of Education - Piauí Former Municipal Secretary of Teresina - Piauí Former Member of the State Council of Education/PI Former Coordinator of the State Education Forum Former Member of the MEC/INEP (Ministry of Education/National Institute of Educational Studies and Research) Evaluators Bank Vice-Rector of Undergraduate Education at the Technological University Center of Teresina - UNI-CET e-Mail: jrib.torres@gmail.com Tel. 55+ 86 99454 6432 Abstract Corruption in Brazil constitutes a structural phenomenon, historically constructed and socially reproduced, directly impacting the legitimacy of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of public policies. This article aims to analyze corruption from a sociological and political perspective, articulating classical and contemporary contributions. Methodologically, it is a bibliographic study based on authors such as Max Weber, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, and Raymundo Faoro, as well as contemporary thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jürgen Habermas. The results indicate that corruption in Brazil arises from the interaction between historical, cultural, institutional, and economic factors, requiring integrated approaches to address it. It is concluded that combating corruption requires not only institutional reforms but also the reconstruction of public ethics and the strengthening of democratic culture. Keywords: Corruption; Patrimonialism; Democracy; Political culture; Public ethics. Corruption represents one of the main obstacles to institutional and democratic development in Brazil. Far from being understood merely as an individual moral failing, it is a structural phenomenon, linked to the historical formation of the State and the social practices that permeate the relations between the public and private sectors. In this context, this article aims at an analytical-reflective approach to corruption in Brazil from a sociological and political perspective, articulating classic and contemporary contributions, in order to understand its causes, dynamics and impacts. The sociological understanding of corruption refers to the concept of patrimonialism, developed by Max Weber, according to which there is a confusion between the public and the private. According to Weber (1999, p. 151), patrimonial administration treats state resources as an extension of personal interests. In Brazil, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda identifies the predominance of personal relationships in public life. The author states: "The Brazilian contribution to civilization will be one of cordiality" (HOLANDA, 1995, p. 146). In turn, Raymundo Faoro highlights the appropriation of the State by a bureaucratic class, which perpetuates practices of domination and favoritism. Contemporary analysis broadens the understanding of corruption by emphasizing ethical and symbolic dimensions. Hannah Arendt, in discussing the banality of evil, points out that unethical practices can become routine in bureaucratic structures: "The greatest evil in the world is committed by no one" (ARENDT, 1999, p. 252). Emmanuel Levinas proposes ethics as responsibility for others, with corruption being a rupture of this fundamental responsibility. In the sociological field, Pierre Bourdieu explains the reproduction of social practices through habitus, indicating that corruption can be naturalized. Finally, Jürgen Habermas highlights that corruption compromises the public sphere and communicative rationality, affecting democratic legitimacy. In the political sphere, coalition presidentialism stands out, according to Sérgio Abranches, which requires constant negotiations between the Executive and Legislative branches, often associated with the distribution of positions and resources. Scandals such as Mensalão, Operation Lava Jato, and the more recent and spectacular scandals involving the embezzlement of part of the salaries of retirees and pensioners of the National Institute of Social Security and network corruption, involving family interests and political, economic, and judicial groups, demonstrate the complexity of corruption networks and the institutional challenges, severely undermined, in confronting them. This means that these powers have lost the legitimacy to act as a guarantee of citizen representation. On the other hand, corruption is directly related to social inequality and the concentration of power, where in Brazil the process of A KIND OF ABSOLUTIST MONARCHY was legitimized when Political Parties, their Statutes and Ideologies present in pseudo-democratic discourses and in the fiction of their Government Plans are replaced by the will of FAMILY AND ECONOMIC GROUPS. From Pierre Bourdieu's perspective, it is observed that social agents use different forms of capital to maintain privileged positions, reinforcing the reproduction of inequalities. Corruption compromises trust in institutions and weakens citizen participation, which, according to Jürgen Habermas, means that transpar Furthermore, corruption in Brazil worsens even more when it threatens the social contract and the democratic values that underpin life in society are ignored in favor of individual and group interests that have been entrenched in power for centuries and are the main factor fracturing democratic institutions. The values of a civic society, based, among other things, on family, religion, and the recognition and practice of civil, political, and social rights, are denied as a mechanism to undermine citizen participation in order to favor the perpetuation of power. This is not only about economic and financial corruption, but also about political and social corruption and, above all, about MORAL consequences. ency and public debate are essential for democratic legitimacy and are directly affected by corrupt practices. Of these rights, the family and the school have been used as the foundational space for the process of domination by an educated minority over the unschooled or semi-schooled majority that survives on crumbs of power that offers only the minimum, and sometimes not even the minimum, to reproduce this picture of true genocide of freedom, hope, and equal rights, silently decimating generations that could potentially contribute their scientific, political, and social values and skills to the construction of a great nation. Corruption in Brazil must be understood not only as an ABSTRACT structural and multidimensional PHENOMENON, but mainly as a plan of domination that is concretely observed in the political and economic actions of the government, endorsed by PART of the judiciary, the economic elite, the legislative branch, allied with the parallel state of organized crime, globalized, especially, by drug trafficking, which establishes a network of influence and domination over interest groups in power to the detriment of the Democratic State. Understanding the gravity of this context is possible through a reflective articulation between the thoughts of classical and contemporary authors, demonstrating that addressing it requires integrated measures involving institutional reforms, strengthening public ethics, and promoting the decisive participation of active citizens. REFERENCES ARENDT, Hannah. Eichmann em Jerusalém: um relato sobre a banalidade do mal. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1999. ABRANCHES, Sérgio. Presidencialismo de coalizão: o dilema institucional brasileiro. Dados, Rio de Janeiro, v. 31, n. 1, 1988. BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. Campinas: Papirus, 1996. FAORO, Raymundo. Os donos do poder: formação do patronato político brasileiro. 3. ed. São Paulo: Globo, 2001. HABERMAS, Jürgen. Teoria do agir comunicativo. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1984. HOLANDA, Sérgio Buarque de. Raízes do Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Ética e infinito. Lisboa: Edições 70, 1982. WEBER, Max. Economia e sociedade. Brasília: UnB, 1999.