WORKING PAPER Tales from Brazil: the use of digital media to mobilize people against corruption and pressure politicians to pass bills against themselves1 Fernanda Odilla (Università di Bologna) Alice Mattoni (Università di Bologna) ABSTRACT: The paper investigates how activists’ use of digital media entangle with two recent anti- corruption initiatives in Brazil that became bills through popular petition: the Ficha Limpa (or Clean State Law) and the Ten Measures Against Corruption campaigns. While the former was rapidly approved with few changes in 2010, the latter has been under discussion since 2016 and has faced backlashes and substantial changes from its original proposal. The paper seeks to understand the two opposite outcomes through a comparative case study research design inspired by the analytic narrative approach, using-depth interviews with key activists involved in the two campaigns and also secondary sources, including the analysis of the campaigns’ digital media and official congressional records. The paper argues that collectively constructed bills, along with leaders with both prestige and expertise to negotiate with congressional members, are as important as the rise of corruption perception and the rise of calls for urgent progress on anti-corruption mechanisms obtained through activists' engagement with digital media. However, online mobilization strategies without a clear advocacy approach to negotiate with (and pressure) MPs do not seem to be enough to promote legislative reforms. KEYWORDS: Anti-Corruption; Activism, Digital Media; Political Engagement, Social Movement Outcomes. Introduction In the past few years, civil society has been able to push for a seat at the table in the fight against corruption. Smulovitz and Peruzzotti (2000) reminded us that citizen action aimed at overseeing political authorities is not limited to elections and is becoming a fact of life. The literature reflects a growing recognition of the important role of civil society in fighting corruption (Grimes 2008; Johnston 2012; Rose-Ackerman and Palifka 2016; Rotberg 2017; Mungiu-Pippidi 2015; Mattoni 2017) and in holding public officials accountable (O’Donnell 1999; Smulovitz and Peruzzotti 2000; Fox 2015). Hence, there is little doubt that empowering citizens is an effective strategy to succeed in combating corruption and improving accountability. However, empirical evidence of the best strategies to oversee public authorities and the circumstances under which the state responds to citizen’s voices can still be considered insufficient. In this regard, digital media can be an important ally in increasing citizen participation in law- making as it offers feasible opportunities for civic interaction. This is particularly true of those with political motivation and access to the Internet in democratic societies (Dahlgren 2005). Kossow and Kukutschka (2017) argued that social media, open data, and other types of digital media empower citizens, allowing them to organize and mobilize against corruption and, therefore, render them able to 1 This work is part of the BIC-ACT project (https://site.unibo.it/bit-act/en) and was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant number 802362. 1 contribute anti-corruption effectively. This is in line with most of the literature on digital media and social movements, which shows that digital media are increasingly important for activists and their campaigns worldwide (Bennett and Segerberg 2013, Earl and Kimport 2011). Still, we know very little about how digital media work in countering corruption from civil society initiatives. At the same time, the literature on social movement outcomes has been shy, so far, in assessing how digital media entangle with the main mechanisms through which social movement organizations can achieve their goals. Despite some exceptions that focus on various forms of Internet activism (i.e. Earl 2016, Romanos Fraile et al. 2016), we still need to explore more in-depth which types of mechanisms the use of digital media facilitate in shaping social movement outcomes and which types of impact they are able to promote in the policymaking realm. Therefore, this paper explores how activists’ use of digital media entangle with two recent anti- corruption initiatives in Brazil that became bills through popular petition: the Ficha Limpa (or Clean State Law) and the Ten Measures Against Corruption campaigns. At a more theoretical level, the paper aims at casting light on the role that digital media have in shaping social movement’s outcomes in the realm of policymaking. Ultimately, however, we assess how citizens and civil society organizations can effectively persuade legislatures, especially where corruption is a troubling constant to fully support and pass bills made to be enforced against corrupt politicians. The two case studies under investigation here are emblematic examples of one specific type of Internet activism: online facilitation of offline activism (Earl 2016). Both initiatives rested on widespread collective actions, were supported by large social movements’ coalitions, and dealt with the same contentious issue in the same country. Both of them, furthermore, employed various types of digital media to support their campaigns. Although the two initiatives succeeded in collecting the required number of wet ink signatures to propose their respective bills, only one of them transformed the proposal subscribed to by over one million people into a new anti-corruption law. While the Ficha Limpa was rapidly approved with few changes in 2010, the “Ten Measures” has been under discussion since 2016 and has faced backlashes and substantial changes compared to its original proposal. The paper seeks to understand the two opposite outcomes through a comparative case study research design inspired by the analytic narrative approach (Bates et al. 1998, 2000; Levi and Weingast 2016) that combines historical narratives with the description of contextual conditions in a textured and sequenced account (Levi and Weingast 2016) that includes the campaign’s main actors and their strategic actions, as well as their key decisions regarding social mobilization and congressional approach. The paper does this drawing on both primary sources: in-depth interviews with key activists involved in the two campaigns and secondary sources, including the analysis of the campaigns’ digital media and official congressional records. The paper shows that specific types of digital media strategies entangled with the two campaigns differently at different stages and, hence, supporting several mechanisms that led to the social movement outcomes, including the indirect mechanisms of new participant recruitment, the ability to capture the 2 mainstream media attention, and the pressure exerted on elected MPs. Overall, the paper argues that collectively constructed bills, along with leaders with both prestige and expertise to negotiate with congressional members, are as important as the rise of corruption perception and the rise of calls for urgent progress on anti-corruption mechanisms obtained through activists' engagement with digital media. However, the two case studies also suggest that initiatives that focus more on online mobilization strategies without a clear advocacy approach to negotiate with (and pressure) MPs do not seem to be enough to promote legislative reforms. Theory and analytical frame Overall, to be effective, political engagement depends not only on citizens’ efforts to participate but also on politicians’ openness to citizens’ input (Rossini and Oliveira 2016, 4620). In addition, as Gigler and Baijur (2014) highlighted, there is an inherent challenge of empowerment in which certain groups may be reluctant to empower other groups that threaten their own grasp on power. This can be seen particularly in the case of anti-corruption movements. Public officials may feel threatened by this empowerment or be deprived of a means of corruption (Bertot, Jaeger and Grimes 2010). Literature on successful initiatives from civil society involvement in combating corruption suggest that more organized civil society groups are more likely to translate reformist pressure into tangible outcomes (Johnston 2012; Rahman 2017). It has also observed a positive correlation between high numbers of civil society actors and more effective control of corruption (Mungiu-Pippidi 2015; Mattoni 2017). Evidence suggests that coalitions and partnerships between civil society organizations and other anti-corruption actors in society are also expected to increase the chance of better achievements in the fight against corruption (Bader, Marchevska and Mössinger 2018; Fox 2015). In addition, anti-corruption approaches are more likely to be effective when combining complementary (top-down and bottom-up) approaches (Chêne 2012) and when a small number of professional organizations take the lead but count on the support of a bigger group which can mobilize itself if needed (Grimes 2008). However, as Fox (2015) notes, very few citizens' voice-led initiatives result in well-coordinated and effective reforms. Information and communication technology, therefore, appears to be a potent tool to get institutions to listen to citizen voices. Technology has also the potential to help bridge the space between the demands (from citizens, communities, civil society organizations) and the supply made available by governments, law and policy-makers (Gigler and Baijur 2014). This is so because technology is able to lower