The Argentine Republic has exhibited for decades – especially since the return to democracy in 1983 – cyclical crises, fueled by a circular phenomenon of strong leadership and low institutional quality, high levels of corruption, judicial investigations into white-collar crimes with almost no convictions, a ruling class with a tendency to abuse power, little social trust in the State and its institutions, and the absence of effective control bodies capable of monitoring corruption in real time.
El Observatory of Institutional Quality (OCI) It has established an innovative and foundational path in the matter, seeking a systemic inquiry that allows focusing on the evolution - or involution - of that collective dimension.
Focusing on the institutions of the three branches of government, with a non-partisan vision, the collection and comparison of historical data, academic research, analysis of current events, values formation, and the implementation of specialized training programs, it has managed to place issues of fundamental relevance to the future of democracy on the public agenda, with a high impact on the media and the citizenry.
This journey encompasses corruption indicators, the promotion and defense of access to public information, the analysis of public ethics and conflicts of interest of power actors, electoral transparency in presidential elections, the behavior and impact of certain actions of union activity, the evolution of prominent institutions in the map of state organization, passing through the matrix of behavior of the different administrations, accountability, nepotism, and even the notorious gap between the formal dimension of laws and their material application.
With all this effort, based on critical spirit, social commitment and strategic vision, the Institutional Quality Observatory (OCI) has progressively managed -from academia- to build a bridge with society -in synergy with the media- to establish and facilitate with simple language the understanding of certain essential concepts of institutional quality.
Marcelo Bermolén
Lawyer. Expert in Access to Public Information, Institutional Quality, and Electoral Transparency.
