it s the politics, stupid! . the politicization of anti...

“It’s the politics, stupid!”. The politicizationof anti-corruption in Italy

Salvatore Sberna & Alberto Vannucci

Published online: 15 October 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This article aims to analyze the relationship between judicial activism againstpolitical corruption and electoral accountability. The judiciary plays a pivotal role inenforcing anti-corruption legislation, and, in many countries, courts have moved closerand closer towards that kind of working. In the article, we analyze the conditions underwhich a judicial prosecution of corrupt practices can also lead to electoral punishment ofpolitical misconducts by voters, or to a failure of accountability mechanisms. The latteroutcome is more likely to occur if judicial activism is politicized. The ‘politicization’ ofanti-corruption initiatives is here defined as an increase in the polarization of opinions,interests, or values about judicial investigations and the extent to which this polarization isstrategically advanced towards the political debate by parties, political leaders, and media.By crystallizing a new dimension of political conflict, political actors can negatively affectelectoral accountability, diminishing the risk of electoral punishment. We study thisphenomenon by analyzing the case of Italy, a country which has experienced high levelsof politicization of anti-corruption. However, whether and to what extent anti-corruptionpolicies can be politicized is a question open for many other countries that can take asimilar path.

Introduction

In the last decades in Italy, two factors which rarely coexist in the same country at the sametime have found a unique balance: a developed liberal-democratic state with an effective ruleof law, i.e. an independent judicial power, seems in fact to bear levels of corruption higherthan those perceived in several developing countries. 1 This means that corruption hasepisodically received in Italy an unparalleled public exposure due to the judicial inquiries

Crime Law Soc Change (2013) 60:565–593DOI 10.1007/s10611-013-9480-8

1According to Transparency International's corruption perception index, for instance, in 2012 Italy has alower score–i.e. higher corruption–than Ghana, Lesotho, Namibia, Jordan, Cuba, and Rwanda.

S. Sberna (*)Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Florence, Italye-mail: [email protected]

A. VannucciDepartment of Political Sciences, University of Pisa, Florence, Italy

A. Vannuccie-mail: [email protected]

fostered by independent judges. This judicial activism against corruption has played apivotal role in facilitating mechanisms of electoral punishment towards corrupt politicians.

Besides sanctioning what media and politicians have come to describe as the crisisof the “First Republic” in the 1990s, as well of the “Second Republic” in the 2010s,these judicial inquiries have provided abundant evidence to analyze the accountabil-ity of politicians involved in corruption scandals, and especially the failure of suchmechanisms when voters do not “throw the rascals out” and vote for the same suspectpoliticians. The failure of electoral punishment has been widely investigated in theliterature of anti-corruption studies, and several hypotheses have been proposed toexplain voters’ behavior in relation to corrupt practices. However, in the literature, theuse of some cross-cutting categories for politicians and voters as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mayoversimplify the reality. In particular, these categories fit poorly with those cases inwhich the judicial criminalization of certain misconducts has been stronglyquestioned and contested by the same actors involved. In other words, in some cases,we can observe what we call in this paper a ‘politicization’ of anti-corruptioninitiatives, or an increase in the polarization of opinions, interests, or values aboutjudicial inquiries against political corruption, and the extent to which they arestrategically advanced towards the political debate by parties, political leaders, andmedia. We argue that political actors do react against judicial activism and canmobilize their supporters, keeping them cohesive and attached to the organization.By crystallizing a new dimension of political conflict, parties can negatively affectelectoral accountability, diminishing the risk of electoral punishment. Moreover, inthe long run, a politicization of anti-corruption may alter the implementation of anti-corruption policies and also undermine democratic stability.

By using this new framework of analysis, this article aims at contributing to the literatureon electoral punishment of corruption in two different ways: (1) by showing that politicalparties and leaders can alter anti-corruption policies, not only through a direct control of thejudicial system but also through a politicization of its activities when institutional constraintspreserve the institutional autonomy of the judiciary; and (2) by testing whether somepolitical variables—such as media polarization and judicialization of politics—can directlyimpact it.

We study this phenomenon by analyzing Italy, a country which has experienced highlevel of politicization of anti-corruption. However, whether and to what extent anti-corruption policies can be politicized is a question open for many other countries thatcan take a similar path. To facilitate a comparative approach, we first provide a workingdefinition of both criminalization of corruption and politicization of anti-corruption,together with an analytical framework to explain variation in the linkage between thetwo (“The politicization of anti-corruption: a framework for the analysis”). It follows ageneral overview of the Italian case (“Electoral accountability “Italian style””), then, inthe last section ("Assessing the politicization of anti-corruption in Italy") we try toexplain why in Italy a politicization of judicial activism has been so successful.

The politicization of anti-corruption: a framework for the analysis

As we will show in the following sections, Italy may be considered a deviant caseamong established democracies. Two phenomena explain such uniqueness: some

566 S. Sberna, A. Vannucci

cyclical waves of effective prosecution of corrupt practices fostered by mediatizationof scandals and instability in the party system; and, at the same time, a “normaliza-tion” dynamics through the politicization of judicial activism and the weakening ofanti-corruption policies. As a matter of fact, Italy is a special case, but unfortunately itmay not be alone. Other regimes around the world have already experienced similarpatterns of political change and crisis of accountability mechanisms. In other cases,similar crises are not so unlikely to occur. To facilitate a more comparative approach,in this section, we first provide two distinctive working definitions of (1)judicialization of politics and (2) politicization of anti-corruption, in relation also tothe accountability and unaccountability mechanisms that these two processes canbring forth. Then, we propose an analytical framework to explain variation in thelinkage between the two.

Throughout this paper, we refer to criminalization of corruption, as a form of effectivejudicial activism against corrupt practices carried by elected officials. This processdepends on both formal and informal constraints that can limit or enhance judicialintervention. In many countries, courts have moved towards enforcing anti-corruptionlegislation, but they still play only an indirect political role that needs closer scrutiny butwhich remains legitimate if under the rubric of their limitations2. This action influences thepolitical system by possibly fostering electoral accountability, but the latter does notnecessary follows.

In Table 1, we provide an analytical framework to look at this linkage. We assume thatpolitical accountability depends upon the availability of information on politicians’ involve-ment in corruption, whose flow follows a “cascade model”. The first mechanism whichusually generates (more or less reliable) information on the involvement in corruption is thecriminalization of certain practices by the judiciary. Being arrested and prosecuted are not theonly risks that suspected politicians could encounter.More importantly, this judicial activismmay open the “Pandora’s box” of scandals mediatization, intra-party accountability, andelectoral punishment.3 The media system can transmit, integrate, and also amplify—ordampen—the spread of compromising information on politicians’ misconduct. 4 Wheninformation about corruption is available to the public, two alternative

2 Judicialization has not been considered necessarily as a challenge to democratic governance. On thecontrary, it can indicate a “healthy constitutional democracy”. In fact, “an active judiciary is likely toprotect electoral as well as other individual and group rights” ([36], 186).3 Only exceptionally the first two steps of the cascade are inverted, when “watchdog” media raisecorruption cases independently from judicial procedures, thereby providing evidence that prosecutors canuse to incriminate politicians. Investigative reporting of corruption, however, in Italy has traditionally beenalmost absent—even during the mani pulite inquiry—mainly due to an overwhelming influence of thepolitical and economic power over the media environment [37]. In this perspective, judicial inquiries onpoliticians’ illicit activities can be considered as the ultimate source of any potential expression of electoralaccountability, which reflects a more general dissatisfaction of “sanctioning” electors towards the prose-cuted misconducts, the parties, and the political system where they took place. In Italian political electionsfrom 1948 to 2013, the rate of electoral volatility—taken as an indicator of party system’s structure, whichdepends also on its popular legitimization—is strongly correlated to the average rate of prosecution forcorruption and embezzlement crimes in the two years before the election (Pearson index = 0.717,significative at level .01).4 As Guarnieri and Pederzoli ([35], 331) observe: “the media, whose interests often coincide with those ofthe judiciary, are able to support and draw attention to the action of judges and prosecutors”.

The politicization of anti-corruption in Italy 567

mechanisms for accountability may finally come into operation: an intra-party account-ability mechanism that may punish suspected politicians through candidateselection—party leaders may decide to discharge suspected politicians to minimizethe feared electoral drawback of scandals; or the electoral punishment of voters whenthey vote for “throwing the rascals out”.

To summarize, according to this model, the criminalization of corruptionpractices might impact electoral accountability when some of the followingconditions occur: (1) effective prosecution of corrupt practices that finally turnto convictions and legal sanctions; (2) free and plural media which play therole of vital catalyst to an informed electorate; and (3) responsive parties andelectorate.

But do these conditions always take place? In the assessment of the Italiancase, we show that some assumptions of this model may not be consistentwith reality at least for two reasons: first, information is not necessarilyunbiased and reliable, even when this is free and plural; second, both law-enforcement and judicial activism can be politicized by political and societalactors. Especially in civil law systems, the judiciary has an ‘apolitical man-date’. Apolitical means ‘not political, [or] not concerned with politics’ [36].The judiciary may be concerned with public officials’ conducts, but it is notallowed to work in the political sphere or to advocate one particular politicalparty over another. Unlike other cases, in fact, judges ought not to takepolitical considerations into account when making decisions. The judiciary isautonomous and independent but judges should not interfere in the politicalaffairs of the country; nor should they be influenced in their decisions by thepolitical relevance of people prosecuted. Only legal considerations should berelevant to their decisions, and these considerations should be weighed impar-tially. In consolidated democracies, we expect that both societal and political

Table 1 A cascade model of criminalization of corruption and politicization of anti-corruption


players recognize the independence of judicial action, and, in particular, thatparties do not question the impartiality of judicial investigations and decisions,at least not openly5. This means that there could be a strong polarization ofpublic opinion on judicial activism, but political actors do not pick up thispolarization of opinion and start profiling themselves as victims, increasing theintensity of debate. Therefore, only in a similar environment, a criminalizationof corruption is more likely associated with electoral or party punishment.

Conversely, a second scenario is also possible: the one in which criminali-zation of corruption through judicial activism is not passively accepted bypolitical actors, but is politicized in several forms by them6. Here, ‘politiciza-tion of anti-corruption’ is defined as the ability of political actors (parties andleaders) to directly opposing against or fostering judiciary’s impartiality andindependence. Therefore, it is associated with a polarization of opinions, inter-ests, or values about anti-corruption judicial inquiries and the extent to whichthey are strategically advanced towards the political debate by parties, politicalleaders, and media. The political mobilization aims at crystallizing opposingadvocacy coalitions targeting or defending judicial independence. Political ac-tors can raise the question of impartiality, and they can try to constrain judges’actions with adverse procedural burdens and reforms. In this way, they try toalter the course of judicial activities, or, when this option is not available, theyjust aim at keeping the party’s electorate cohesive and loyal to the suspectleaders. Conversely, other political actors can strategically politicize judicialactivities, in the attempt to defend their independence. The impact of thisphenomenon can be detrimental for democratic governance because it maynegatively affect the trust of citizens in the judicial system and de facto shieldsuspected politicians from electoral punishment.

The alternative to the politicization of anti-corruption is the de-politicization, whenparties actively keep the issue of judicial activism from the political agenda.

Several forms of politicization can be carried out. Based on a more system-atic definition of politicization provided in the literature, we distinguish threedifferent forms: institution, procedures, and decisions [4, 16]. The first grouprefers to the judiciary as bureaucracy. In this case, politicization is understoodto mean an increased relevance of political parties within the organization ofthe judiciary through a tighter grip on its operations and an increasing

5 By arguing that, we do not mean that institutional players and parties do not try to influence or in somecases even control the action of the judiciary. The real existing balance among state powers is muchdifferent from the institutional checks and balances mechanisms designed by constitution or regulations.Most of the time, this balancing is asymmetrical and favors legislative and executive powers, but thisbargaining remains mainly institutional (played among institutional actors) and informal (beyond officialregulations). This logic is much different from a situation in which political parties (not only institutions)directly politicize judicial action, question their decisions, and openly mobilize supporters against them inthe attempt to keep their electorates cohesive and loyal, and only partially to directly influence the behaviorof judges.6 This outcome is not expected in an established and well-functioning democracy in which independenceand autonomy of the judicial system are unquestionable, especially when the judiciary enforces the lawsagainst corruption. Conversely, we expect a politicization of anti-corruption initiatives to be more likely tooccur in highly polarized and personalized political systems.


prominence of party political conflict within the judiciary apparatus. An exam-ple could be “the substitution of political criteria for merit-based criteria in theselection, retention, promotion, rewards, and disciplining of members” ([51], 2).The second category includes the procedures, rules, and practices that make upthe day-to-day functioning of the judiciary. Politicization in this sense refers toincreasing influence of elected politicians in decision-making processes at theexpense of judiciary’s independence and autonomy. Parties can approve policyreforms that allow the judiciary less leeway to deviate from party preferences.Thus, instances of politicization can be reforms that aim at de-penalizing certainconducts associated with corruption or shortening the statute of limitation forcorruption crimes, thus leading to impunity. Finally, politicization of decisionsrefers to an increase in salience and diversity of opinions on single judicialdecisions, whose impartiality is publicly debated. Politicization thus refersinitially to a process whereby the controversy of these decisions goes up. Thus,parties ‘cue’ voters and supporters at the same time about the opportunity ofcertain decisions, promoting contentiousness about single decisions on purposewhich then flare up in intense debates and street protests. In this case, instancesof politicization of judicial activism take place in bounded ‘episodes of con-tention’ linked to the cover-up of the inquiries [16].

In Table 1, we try to describe this process analytically, looking at the contributionthat each single actor (voter/politician/media/judiciary) can give to it. The finaloutcome is not electoral accountability as we saw in the former scenario, but theopposite one. The “cascade” becomes akin to a funnel, in which judges, media, party,and/or electors fail to expose and sanction politicians’ wrongdoings. In the case ofItaly, many “obstructions” blocked the mechanisms of electoral accountability, withthe exceptions of the immediate post-Mani Pulite phase, and presumably also in the2013 elections. Until 1992, the four mechanisms for political accountability ofcorrupt politicians were all, to a certain extent, barely effective: judges rarely startedinquiries (which were nevertheless often addressed by higher-rank magistrates to-wards a procedural dead end), politicized media did not emphasize the cases, partiesdid not sanction their prosecuted members—on the contrary, they often supported andprotected them— and, finally, an electorate ideologically polarized or motivated byclientelistic “vote of exchange” motivations did not punish their corruptrepresentatives.

As we argue, this failure of electoral accountability can also be the productof a politicization of judicial activism, and in fact this remains a political optionopen to parties and political leaders. To be successful, several actors need to beinvolved, more resources spent, and public resonance of polarized and intensedebate kept long. To understand why politicization of anti-corruption judicialactivism occurs at different speeds and intensities in different countries, we cansingle out two variables that in our opinion can explain the variation inpolitical outcomes.

In Table 2, we present a typology in which two variables interact: the degree ofjudicialization of politics in a country (low/high) and the ideological polarization ofmedia and politics (low/high). The interaction between them leads to four differentscenarios, which are ideal types of different political outcomes, as a syntheticrepresentation of the conditions that may facilitate or obstruct the electoral


accountability of corrupt politicians. The degree of judicialization of politics isintended as the capability of judges to activate—at the first level of the cascademodel presented above—effective control and enforcement mechanisms againstcorruption. This relates to both formal (the degree of autonomy and independenceconstitutionally guaranteed to the judges, etc.) and informal factors (the professionalculture of judges, the incentives to collude with politicians, etc.). The degree ofpolarization of both the media and the political systems refers instead to the role ofjournalists, party leadership, and electors, respectively in reporting cases, enhancinginternal “party’s discouragement”, or sanctioning politicians’ misconducts duringelections. Ceteris paribus, in fact, in a polarized system, the probability that evenwidespread corruption will be sanctioned by ballots is much lower: media arepolitically influenced and tend to report mainly to “supporters” only evidenceinvolving political opponents, with a limited impact on public opinion; politicalleadership tends to protect their representatives, especially when bribe revenues areredistributed within the party; the relevance of the “affiliation vote” decreases theelectors’ willingness to sanction their “shady” candidates.

Our hypothesis is that a politicization of anti-corruption is more likely to occurwhen (1) the judiciary has the power to prosecute widespread corrupt practices byrelying on both external and internal independence, and (2) the polarization of thepolitical system is higher. In these circumstances, in fact, the inquiries on politicalleaders are more likely to be contentious, and strategically crystallized in opposingadvocacy coalitions. As these conditions vary, the outcome will also be different. Inthe same typology, in fact, we suggest that some form of “institutional” cover-up canoccur. Finally, an effective criminalization of corruption—also fostered by “anti-corruption” political entrepreneurs and parties—could be fostered by a combinationof sufficient judicialization of certain opaque areas of illicit political activities and ahigher propensity of journalists, party leadership, and electors to “take corruptionseriously” when they report cases, select candidates, or vote. Clearly, this would bethe most favorable environment for an effective electoral accountability of chargedpoliticians.

This typology will help us in explaining the variation in the Italian case in the lastdecades, but it would also be suitable for a comparative analysis of a range ofdemocratic regimes that have (or have not) experienced similar political changesand crises. In the following sections, we provide an analysis of the Italian case testing

Table 2 A typology of facilitating/obstructing conditions for electoral accountability in contexts ofpervasive corruption

Degree of judicialization of politics

High Low

Degree of polarizationof the political and mediasystem

High Anti-corruption issuepoliticization (Italy after1994)

Political parties and mediacover-up (Italy before1992)

Low Corruption issuepoliticization

Institutional cover-up


our hypothesis on the politicization of judicial activism as a determinant of the failureof accountability.

Electoral accountability “Italian style”

In the early 1990s, Italy experienced one of the most dramatic party systemchanges in the history of established democracies. The two major ruling partiesof the country were thrown into turmoil until they collapsed. Many businessmenand political leaders were arrested and prosecuted for having paid or receivedbribes. With no doubts, Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) was the most extensivejudicial campaign against political corruption in Western democracies. This wasthe most successful criminalization of practices which were widely accepted bypolitical actors for many years, both at national and sub-national level, withoutencountering effective criminal prosecutions nor social stigma. Besides theseexceptional moments, the country has experienced an informal institutionalizationof these practices, before and after the Mani Pulite campaign, that have dramat-ically weakened the democratic stability of the system. In this section, we willpresent the Italian case and the three different phases that describe the variationin the relationship between party politics and judicial activism against corruption.Then, in the next section, we propose an explanation of this variation adoptingthe framework presented in “The politicization of anti-corruption: a frameworkfor the analysis”, evaluating the role played both by the independence of thejudiciary and by the polarization of the political system, and how their interactioncan determine the emergence of politicization of anti-corruption. We will see inpractice how a similar process can be successfully carried out by political actors,and how a new dimension of conflict can be created in which the impartiality ofthe judiciary becomes a contentious issue and the overall confidence of citizensupon judges is negatively affected.

The “traditional” electoral unaccountability of Italian politicians

From the end of the Second World War, which caused the breakdown of the fascistregime, until the early 1990s, the Italian Republic was characterized by a very highstability of its party system. Even if governments often changed, the ChristianDemocracy (Dc) remained stable in power, having a permanent pivotal role in rulingmajorities. During the 1960s, the perimeter of executives was extended to the center-left, including the Socialist Party (Psi), while the left-wing opposition led by theItalian Communist Party (Pci), in spite of its official “anti-system” ideological stance,especially since the 1970s pragmatically entered into informal consociational nego-tiations with the ruling parties.

The expansion of the control of political parties over the public sector and theeconomic system gradually degenerated into “partitocracy,” a dominance of partyleadership over national executives, public policies, bureaucratic patronage, andpublic entrepreneurship. The long-standing absence of any alternation in nationalgovernment undermined the reciprocal control among political actors, encouragingunofficial collusive attitudes and clientelistic practices [54]. The less the parties were


able to obtain electoral support from a stable base, the more they had to rely onclientelistic incentives. This pushed them to increase public expenditures, while at thesame time reducing their capacity for fostering long-term planning and producingeffective policy-making [10].

From 1948 to 1992, the hidden development of a large and “institutionalized”texture of corruption, diffused both at the level of local and central government[19–23, 25], was not followed—especially at the national level—by any effectiveelectoral responsibility for the political actors involved in such crimes. Some scandalserupted sporadically: the Ingic scandal in 1954, with 1,183 local politicians investi-gated for corruption and embezzlement crimes all over Italy, none of them convicteddue to the expiration of statute of limitation [9]; the first Oil scandals in 1974; theLockheed scandal in 1976; and the second oil scandal in 1978; and the MasonicLodge Propaganda 2 (P2) scandal in 1981 [30, 62].7

None of the scandals produced significant political or judicial consequences for theparties and politicians involved, with the possible exception of the Lockheed case,when a former Minister was discharged by his party—the Social DemocratParty—and soon afterwards convicted. The overall stability of the party system andthe political class—exemplified by the low electoral volatility in the 1953–1987elections shown in Fig. 2—was not put in danger by the occasional involvement incorruption of ruling parties; no alternation in national government nor electoral defeatfollowed the evidence of their corruption, illicit financing, and malpractice. The onlyinstitutional response to the main scandals of the 1970s was a bipartisan approval in1974 of the law which introduced public party financing in Italy [38].

National politicians charged with wrongdoings usually passed the two-steps pro-cedure to be re-elected: both party (internal) and electoral (external) accountabilitymechanisms failed, since they were normally confirmed as candidates in their party’slist; and often they got enough votes to be re-elected. As Chang et al. demonstrate,until 1992 members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies with serious judicial chargeswere as likely as other “clean” incumbents “to see their name on their party’s ballotfor election into the next legislature” ([6], 190) in the first place; and, secondly,judicial allegations of criminal malfeasance did not negatively influence their pros-pect for re-election. On the contrary, “when a deputy is charged with a potentiallyserious crime, he nonetheless enjoys greater than even reelection rates” ([6], 180).

As an illuminating example of this “traditional” two-steps electoral unaccount-ability of corrupt politicians, we may consider the case of a socialist leader in Milan,Antonio Natali, who as President of the City Company for underground railway,invented in the 1970s the so-called Milan system: “the ‘Natali’s rule’ was theunwritten rule that every public tender should generate a conspicuous flow of money

7 The P2 scandal was particularly important, involving 36 members of Parliament, more than 50 generals(including the highest ranks of the secret service), high level functionaries, journalists, and entrepreneurs(among them the future prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi) who were affiliated to the lodge, whose grandmaster Gelli—besides the involvement in illicit financial affairs, corruption, and illicitbrokerage—elaborated a political project characterized by “a strong anti-system connotation and conse-quently by an indirect subversive orientation”. Cfr. Parliamentary Commission of inquiry on the P2 lodge.Final Report, instituted by law 527/1981, approved on July 3, 1984. Cfr. http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/266325_comment.php (accessed: May 14, 2011),


http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/266325_comment.php

http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/266325_comment.php

for parties: bribes were 3–4 % of the value for construction, up to 13.5 % for plantengineering” ([59]: 85). When Natali was arrested with a corruption charge in March1985, he received strong solidarity from all leading representatives of his party,whose national leader Bettino Craxi—as a Prime Minister—made a formal requestto visit him in jail “to discuss with him organizational and political issues related tothe Socialist Party’s activity (…). Natali was freed from jail shortly after”.8 Two yearslater, Natali stood as a candidate for the Socialist Party in a national election for theSenate, being elected with a substantial increase in the party’s vote in the city, from 11to 18 % ([11], 156). Judges asked the Parliament repeatedly for the authorization toprosecute him—the consent of his Chamber that was necessary until a constitutionalreform in 1993—but the Senate always refused to concede it, thereby extinguishingthe judicial procedure [12, 64].

Therefore, since the early 1980s, when the relative importance of ideologicallinkages started to weaken, a new type of political elites emerged, the so-calledbusiness politicians ([19, 53]). This type of politician in fact typically starts hisactivity with a scarce capital of pre-political resources (money, prestige, competence,etc.), but he uses his role within the party to promote his career as appointed orelected officials. He is capable to capitalize his political activity in other professionalbusinesses, but also to build clientelistic networks, or to enrich himself. Businesspoliticians therefore impose a new upward model of political mobility based mainlyon clientelism and corruption: unscrupulousness and low moral barriers against anyopportunity of illegal profit are matched with an exhibition of arrogance, daring,haughtiness, which assume also a “promotional function” in the eyes of electors9.They resemble in fact their presumed capability to impose their “decisionist” attitudein decision-making, thereby obtaining the consent of electors who share the view that“getting things done” has a value in itself, even if accompanied by some irregular orillicit practices.

The systemic diffusion of corrupt practices also explains why in this period noneof the scandals produced significant political or judicial consequences. In an in-depthanalysis of three pre-1992 corruption cases, della Porta analyzes the reabsorption andnormalization phases after the involvement of the local parties and politicians incorruption scandals. The impact of the exposure was characterized by small electorallosses for the parties and politicians implicated, in most cases not enough to end theirpolitical career. In local elections, however, parties seemed to be more worried about

8 Cfr. CAMERA DEI DEPUTATI, Domanda d’autorizzazione a procedere, doc. IV, n. 202, 8 febbraio 1993, pp.12–13.9 As a mechanism to transmit and satisfy particularistic political demands, generating political support[52]—the development of clientelism in Italy is intertwined with corruption in a vicious circle [19]. Thespread of vote-buying—linked to the presence of clientelism—raised in fact the cost of politics, forcingpoliticians to seek material resources to invest in their political activity. Corrupt politicians thereforeenjoyed a competitive advantage over their more scrupulous colleagues, since they could also use resourcesderived from illegal deals to create political machines based on the exchange of material resources withelectors—to get votes—and with their party leaders—to get political protection in their career. The numberof politicians willing to “purchase” votes and support, particularly through strategies of “individualisticmobilization” (53), therefore tended to increase, as well as the incentives towards corruption, whoserisks—in terms of political sanctions—were consequently reduced. Moreover, the incentive to increasethe amount of bribes collected induced corrupt politicians to increase the amount of resources allocated, andtherefore also the opportunity to distribute them with clientelistic criteria.


the consequences of the scandal on their “collective reputation”: “while those in-volved are marginalized, normalization seems to imply a temporary success ofpoliticians who propose themselves as ‘moralizers’ and party leaders lesscompromised” ([17], 295).

The “Mani Pulite effect”

In February 1992, the Mani Pulite (“Clean Hands”) judicial inquiry started in Milanwith the arrest of the socialist manager of a public hospice. The subsequent investi-gations revealed pervasive corruption across the whole country, determining a hugeincrease in the number of politicians—also at the highest level, as in the case of sixformer prime ministers and more than one-third of the members of theParliament—bureaucrats and entrepreneurs accused of participation in corrupt ex-changes. The corruption scandal—which was accompanied in autumn 1992 by adramatic financial crisis—led for the first time to the realization of an effectivesystemic, as well as individual, electoral accountability for political actors involvedin the scandal. As a consequence, most political parties almost disappeared or wentinto drastic changes, among them the Dc and the Psi, due to their electoral defeats.From 1992 to 1994, the five former ruling parties collapsed from 53.1 to 13.8 %.Christian Democrats—re-named the Popular Party—fell from 29.6 to 11.1 %; theSocialist party from 13.6 to 2.2 %, while the overall rate of electoral volatility reachedthe extraordinary rate of 37.6 (see Fig. 2). Also other parties—the former Communistand post-fascist parties among them—underwent radical transformation in the fol-lowing years, while new political actors emerged on the scene to fill the politicalvacuum which was left by the disintegration of the old.

Most leading political figures were put under inquiry, condemned, forced to resignor even to escape to avoid imprisonment, such as in the case of the Socialist formerPrime Minister Bettino Craxi. At the individual level, in fact, “after decades ofchronic high-level political malfeasance, and abetted by serious judicial action andcrucially, a strident press corps, Italian voters finally threw the rascals out” ([6], 215).No similar instance of such a dramatic and far-reaching collapse of a wholeparty system and deep-rooted political elite has ever occurred in a stableliberal-democracy.

How did the Mani Pulite inquiry change, in 1994, the Italian paradigm of atraditionally almost nil electoral accountability of political malfeasance? Severalhypotheses have been formulated, emphasizing among others the role of a presum-ably “new” media environment [6, 40], the end of the “fear of communism” follow-ing 1989 events, which made moderate electors less sensitive to ideological appeals[3], the changing role of internal mechanisms of “party accountability”, with partiesshaping the candidate pools as to minimize electoral losses deriving from the charges[2], the economic crisis which exacerbated electors’ aversion towards politicalmalfeasance [1]. The above mentioned and other contingent factors may haveinfluenced the successful development of the Mani Pulite inquiry and its impact onthe political system, but their ultimate source was the capability of Italianjudges—never experienced before—to prosecute politicians effectively, activating a“snowball effect” which attracted the attention of the media and finally caused astrong reaction of the public opinion.


As shown in Fig. 1, in 1992–1994, the rate of prosecution for corruption and other“political malfeasance” crimes reached in quantitative terms an unprecedented level,and also the “qualitative” status of most politicians involved was extraordinarily high.Our hypothesis, as we will see in the next section, is that an increased degree ofjudicialization of Italian politics—to be intended in general terms as the “expansionof the province of the courts or the judges at the expense of the politicians and/or theadministrators” ([63], 91)—favored an effective criminalization of corruption. Thisprocess, once crossed a critical threshold, triggered a self-fuelling process of increas-ing media coverage and then of electoral punishment.

The unparalleled success of Mani Pulite inquiries, besides the above-mentioned“external” facilitating factors, was caused by internal “positive feedback” mecha-nisms which fostered the action of judges. Obviously, the underlying reality of awidespread, systemic corruption was a necessary condition, as well. In a famousspeech at the Chamber of Deputies, the Socialist leader and former Prime MinisterBettino Craxi in July 1992 overtly admitted that “under the cover of irregular fundingto the parties cases of corruption and extortion have flourished and becomeintertwined (…). What needs to be said, but everyone in this Chamber knows, is thatthe greater part of political funding is irregular or illegal” (TNM p.88).

As soon as the first politicians and entrepreneurs in jail—deliberately put by theMilanese judges into a prisoner’s dilemma-like situation [13]—started to collaboratewith judges, the whole mechanism was set in motion. The amount of informationgathered by prosecutors on illegal activities of political actors grew exponentially,with a domino effect, when new episodes of corruption emerged by confessionsand—following the exposure of the flows of bribes—national-level politicians werealso prosecuted. The number of politicians, bureaucrats, and entrepreneurs arrested orinvestigated and their institutional relevance could not be ignored, concealed, ordisguised by the media system: in some cases, journalists were “used” by the judges

Fig. 1 Judicial inquiries against embezzlement, fraud, extortion, and corruption of public officials, 1948–2008


to build support for their investigation ([37], [54], 123). 10 Moreover, corruptionrevenues were used mainly to consolidate parties’ oligarchies—only marginally forpersonal enrichment—and the involvement of political parties in collusive sharingagreements of bribes had virtually no exception [19, 21]. As a consequence, whenevidence was exposed, the scandal did not hit only singular actors but also parties assuch and the party system as a whole. Therefore, the media system—whatever thepolitical bias of journalists—could not disregard such widespread “bipartisan” mal-feasance. Before any individual accountability, a “systemic” accountability mecha-nism sanctioned the conjoint responsibility of all “old” parties in systemic corruption:a strong demand for “newness” emerged in the electoral market [54], intercepted in1994 by Silvio Berlusconi’s brand-new party, Forza Italia.

Deeply shaken by the scandal and further de-legitimized at the eyes of citizens,political parties and their leadership could not effectively “protect”—as in thepast—their members from the risk of judicial actions. In 1993 and 1994, two lawdecrees, aiming at de-criminalizing illegal party financing, were blocked by the ManiPulite judges’ resistance. The astonishing amount of evidence on corruption casesproduced a profound reaction in public opinion, which initially backed almostunanimously judges’ activity. As the Mani Pulite judge, Piercamillo Davigo, oncestated: “Without any doubt we received strong support from public opinion, adiffused consent towards our activity” ([13], 96).11

The public support sustaining prosecutors and judges who investigated cor-ruption cases produced a threefold effect. On the one hand, it induced anemulative effect, expanding the scope of judicial inquiries to the whole country.After Milan, since 1992 all over Italy judges started to investigate politicians,therefore expanding and strengthening the function of control over “politicalintegrity”: “implicitly, or more often explicitly, (…) Italian magistracy operatedtaking into consideration what was happening in the public sphere; and couldact [against corruption] thanks to the support that it found there. The struggleagainst the political class was fought in order to obtain the recognition and thepositive judgments expressed in the public sphere” ([54], 98). Moreover, publicopinion interest towards corruption cases encouraged media to offer an exten-sive coverage—and since all parties were involved in the scandal, politicalorientation of the media did not discourage them from providing at least apartial exposure. Finally, the shared emphasis on the cathartic role of judges’activity against corruption further undermined legitimization of political actors,whose feared punishment did not derive from conviction but from the reputa-tional damage following public exposure of their involvement in malfeasance:“the actual punishment is the public denounce following judges’ inquiries, notthe conviction, which will eventually follow—who knows when—and also in

10 Media played, however, a somewhat ambiguous role in Italy during theMani Pulite inquiries. Kenny andCrepaz [40] show that, in the political crisis of the early 1990s, far from being an impartial watchdog ofpower, media interest towards corruption was correlated to their political affiliation, offering very differentpatterns of coverage. In other words, media operated as agents using the corruption issue to influencepolitical competition.11 As another judge—Carlo Nordio—emphasizes, support for theMani Pulite inquiries from the media andcivil society “was—at least initially—not only general and unconditional, but also free of any political andcultural influences. Support came from left and right, without reservation” [49], 16).


that case will not change the situation” ([54], 114). Party leadership controlover candidates’ “cleanness” became stricter, since they were afraid of beingelectorally sanctioned by public indignation [2].

To conclude, the electoral accountability which followed mani pulite inqui-ries was the output of a process caused by an increase in the judicialization ofareas of political activity where corruption had become an institutionalizedpraxis [25]. Extensive media coverage of corruption cases was encouragedby—and in turn fostered—judges’ investigations and public opinion resentmenttowards greedy politicians, weakening political actors who in previous periodshad successfully hampered the deflagration of political scandals. Both judgesand politicians, at a certain point, were competing for support in the publicsphere, the first to advance their inquiries on corruption, the latter to survive.Besides producing a broad—even if transitory—popular reaction against “cor-rupt politics”, whose results were manifest in the 1994 national elections, thepremises were put for the subsequent institutional conflict between the politicalpower and the magistracy. A politicization of the “anti-corruption issue” stalledonce more the potential for electoral accountability of political malfeasance.

The “restoration” phase and the 2013 national elections

After the collapse of the party system, new parties and political leaders came out, but,unexpectedly, no single-issue party strategically using anti-corruption emerged at thetime. More importantly, new parties re-aligned themselves along traditional and pastideological cleavages (communism vs. liberalism), although some parties more thanothers kept the salience of anti-corruption strategically higher (the Northern League ofUmberto Bossi). The corruption scandals provoked in fact a drastic transformation of theparty system, even in the absence of any significant constitutional change. The assump-tion that Italy was undergoing a transition from a ‘First’ to a ‘Second’ Republic wastherefore questionable, but it captured the dramatic effect of this political “criticaljuncture”. New leading political actors appeared, such as the media tycoon—and richestman in the country—Silvio Berlusconi, who in 1994 created Forza Italia, which in 2008was re-named Popolo della Libertà merging with the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale. Anew electoral system with a strong majoritarian effect favored an effective alternation ingovernment of competing coalitions: the center-right won in 1994, 2001, 2008 (Berlu-sconi was Prime Minister in all these periods), and the center-left in 1996 and 2006.Moreover, Italy experienced an almost direct electoral investiture of the Prime Minister,even if not formally provided for by the Constitution. The coalitions remained, however,unstable: many new parties emerged in and disappeared from the political arena,competing within those coalitions or creating new aggregations.

New institutional reforms were launched in the attempt to offer a more accountableand responsive political system: decentralization, the direct election of mayors(1993), and provincial and regional governors (in 1993 and 1999). But the transitionto a more transparent political system failed. The detonator of the political crisis ofthe 1990s—judicial revelations of a widespread corruption—faded during the secondhalf of the decade as a major issue on the political agenda of Italian politics. Thepersistence of extensive corruption and the lack of any effective anti-corruptionpolicy were neglected in the public debate [20, 24, 65]. Without any significant


anti-corruption reform, the networks of corruption regenerated soon: according to theGreco report [33], in Italy “corruption is deeply rooted in different areas of publicadministration, in civil society, as well as in the private sector. The payment of bribesappears to be a common practice to obtain licenses and permits, public contracts,financial deals, to facilitate the passing of university exams, to practice medicine, toconclude agreements in the soccer world, etc. […]. Corruption in Italy is a pervasiveand systemic phenomenon which affects society as a whole.”12

Moreover, as bitterly admitted by a prosecutor, Mani Pulite over the long termincreased the sense of impunity of politicians and entrepreneurs who were prosecuted,due to the overall ineffectiveness of the judicial machine: “From a judicial point of view,Mani Pulite has been useless, or even worse, harmful: the almost total failure to secureany convictions (of 3,200 defendants, 2,200 will get awaywith their crimes thanks to thestatute of limitations) strengthens the sense of impunity that reigned in Italy before1992” (interview to Gherardo Colombo, in “la Repubblica”, May 15 2000, p.15).

The interest of the public towards corruption issues declined consequently: thesuspicion that candidates might have been involved in corrupt practices did not worryItalian electors in a significant way. Whereas in 1996 91.8 % of Italian electors stillconsidered corruption to be a very or quite important problem, and 30.6 % saw it as thefirst or the second most important social and economic problem in the country (onlyunemployment scored higher percentage), following the general election of 2001 thepercentage of those who considered it as one of the two most important problems fell to5.5 %. After the 2008 election, only 0.2 % of Italian voters considered corruption themost important problem that government should have taken into consideration.13

An emblematic example of the vanishing relevance of corruption charges is SilvioBerlusconi’s political career. Despite being implicated in 31 inquiries for corruption,false accounting, and other serious crimes since 1994, judicial charges did not producesignificant electoral consequences. 14 Nonetheless, Berlusconi became the longest-lasting Prime Minister in the history of the Italian Republic after his coalition wonelections in 1994, 2001, and 2006, and he also remained the uncontested leader of thecenter-right coalition after he was defeated—by a very small percentage of votes—in the1998, 2006, and 2013 elections.

Following the introduction of the closed-list system of proportional representation in2006, the selection ofMPs has been placed to a large extent in the hands of party leaders.The criminal records of candidates did not discourage their inclusion in electoral lists,nor electoral choices. A popular campaign, ‘Clean Parliament’, launched in 2007 by thecomedian and blogger Beppe Grillo, denounced the presence in Parliament of 25members carrying convictions (21 belonging to the center-right coalition, 4 to thecenter-left). Following the election of 2008, the corresponding figures were 19 in total

12 GRECO - Group of European States against corruption, Evaluation Report on Italy, Council of Europe,Strasbourg, Greco Eval I/II Rep [33], July 2, 2009 p.3, p.6, in: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/greco/evaluations/round2/GrecoEval1-2(2008)2_Italy_EN.pdf (accessed: Feabruary 11, 2011)..13 Source: own elaboration on Itanes (Italian National Election Study) data for the 1996, 2001 and 2008general elections (http://www.itanes.org/index.asp?s=dati).14 For the record, in September 2013, five judicial proceedings against Berlusconi are still open (with onefirst-degree and one second-degree convictions); one proceeding was finally confirmed by the SupremeCourt ruling four years in jail for the leader because of fiscal fraud; to six proceedings were closed due toexpiration of statute of limitation, two due to amnesty, eight proceedings’ conclusions were acquittal (twoof them following reforms of criminal laws approved by Berlusconi’s government), nine were dismissed.


http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/greco/evaluations/round2/GrecoEval1-2(2008)2_Italy_EN.pdf

http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/greco/evaluations/round2/GrecoEval1-2(2008)2_Italy_EN.pdf

http://www.itanes.org/index.asp?s=dati

(consisting of 17 for the center-right, 2 for the center-left) [60]. In February 2010, theAnti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission approved an “ethical-electoral code” to pro-scribe inclusion in electoral lists in local elections implicated in mafia-related crimes.In spite of this formal constraint, 45 candidates implicated in mafia crimes stood forlocal election in May 2010, 11 of them winning their seat.15

In the 2010s, a new wave of political scandals for corruption, extortion, misap-propriation, and embezzlement crimes hit the Italian party system. Similarly to theMani Pulite inquiries, high profile representatives of all leading parties were charged.As in 1992, moreover, the economic crisis exacerbated the popular discontenttowards the political class, while further investigations on embezzlement of publicfunds in Regional Councils unveiled a pervasive scenario of political illegalityinvolving all political groups. With a domino effect, all over Italy judges started toscrutinize regional budgets, while media emphasized the large number of politiciansinvolved and the “bipartisan”, collusive nature of misappropriation.

In November 2011, the financial crisis and the popular discontent forced the PrimeMinister Berlusconi to resign, leaving the premiership to Mario Monti, who led a“technical” government until the following national election in February 2013. As in1992, ballots again produced a political earthquake hitting the party system. Anotherbrand-new party—the “Five-stars movement”, led by the comedian Beppe Grillo—obtained one fourth of votes. The Movement proposed a political platform whichemphasized its diversity from “old” politics and traditional parties. As shown in Fig. 2,electoral volatility reached 39.1 %, the highest in the history of Italian republic: “thesefigures give an idea of the scope of the historical change taking place, as well as of thedismantling of the party system ([7], p.99).16 The political climate induced party leaders toincrease their consideration of criminal candidates’ criminal records: only 10 convictedcandidates were elected (9 for center-right, 1 from center-left) (Il Fatto Quotidiano, March23, 2013).

15 Commissione Parlamentare antimafia, Relazione del Presidente Pisanu, Allegato 1, Rome, in http://www.parlamento.it/W3/Lavori.nsf/All/B487197B5140CF38C1257832007EFC61?OpenDocument; http://www.corriere.it/Media/pdf/2011/01_Allegato_1_violazione.pdf (accessed February 10, 2011).16 According to Mair [42], an election can be considered very volatile when the rate is higher than 20: inFebruary 2013, the Italian national election volatility rate was almost double such a level.

Fig. 2 Electoral volatility in legislative elections in Italy (1948–2013). Source: [7])


http://www.parlamento.it/W3/Lavori.nsf/All/B487197B5140CF38C1257832007EFC61?OpenDocument

http://www.parlamento.it/W3/Lavori.nsf/All/B487197B5140CF38C1257832007EFC61?OpenDocument

http://www.corriere.it/Media/pdf/2011/01_Allegato_1_violazione.pdf

http://www.corriere.it/Media/pdf/2011/01_Allegato_1_violazione.pdf

A cyclic, unstable, ephemeral phase of judicial exposure, media coverage, andelectoral accountability of political malfeasance, as we will see, may be the likelyoutcome of a political environment where judicial activism coexists with an enduring“visible” polarization”—even when collusive under-the-table agreements prevail—inthe political and media system. The price to be paid in this context, however, is apoliticization of the anti-corruption issue which might weaken the role of the mag-istracy in exposing corruption cases.

Assessing the politicization of anti-corruption in Italy

As presented in the previous section, several changes have occurred in Italy in the lastdecades, especially in the relationship between judicial activism against corruption andaccountability mechanisms carried out both by parties and voters. In this section, we tryto explain this variation, analyzing the change in the judicialization of politics and in thepolarization of the political system. The ‘restoration’ phase followingMani Pulite can beexplained by a specific interaction of two variables that have led to a politicization ofanti-corruption and a crystallization of a new dimension of political conflict.

The judicialization of politics in Italy

In the past decades, Italy has experienced some critical waves of criminalization ofcorrupt practices. The judicialization of certain “opaque” areas of political activityhad already started in the 1970s, but only in the second half of the 1980s itdramatically increased. The “judges’ revolution” of Mani Pulite can be consideredas the final outcome of a process that since the 1980s fostered judicial independencein Italian through both formal and informal changes [18].

Since 1948, constitutional rules—reflecting the need to emancipate the judiciaryfrom the fascist experience—have guaranteed an unusually high level of (at leastformal) independence of the Italian judiciary from the political power [36]. Theformal rule of compulsory prosecution for all offenses reported prevents the govern-ment from political interference in the administration of justice, even when theinvestigation involves leading government figures ([48], 196). However, the sameprinciple of compulsory prosecution was not implemented more often than not—aseven the judges who support it tend to admit [18, 26]. The autonomy of the judiciaryas an institution has been preserved by the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura(Higher Council of the Judiciary), which is formed by a two-thirds majority ofmagistrates directly elected by their peers. The Council progressively obtained moreautonomy, becoming since the 1970s an effective “self-governing body” of thejudiciary, especially regarding career and disciplinary issues.

Notwithstanding the formal institutional independence, hierarchical constraints wereimposed by a structure in which highest-ranking judges acted as intermediaries with theMinistry of Justice [26] and “exchange of favors” between magistrates and parties was acommon practice. Such practices became a way to limit de facto the judges’ interfer-ences in the political sphere, i.e. to ensure judicial conformity. In this context, during the1980s, “two major changes have together reinforced the political significance of thejudiciary: the declining role of the Court of Cassation, and the changing role of public


prosecution in the criminal process” ([34], 255). The trend towards an increasingindependence of prosecutors, within a structure characterized by high decentralizationand autonomy within single prosecutorial offices [26], was steadily reinforced by theenactment in 1989 of a new code of criminal procedure that formally intro-duced the accusatorial model: “As a consequence, all investigative powersrelated to the pre-trial phase, including the direction of the judicial police,converged in the hands of the prosecutors. In this way, they were thus gradu-ally accumulating the weapons which would be put to use, a few years later, topursue political corruption” ([35], 322).

Another less visible process converged in the same direction. Class collusion andinterest collusion—as well as ideological identification with conservative stances—hadtraditionally pushed most judges towards the adoption of collusive strategies in theirinteractions with politicians [54]. As a consequence, insabbiamento—literally “coveringwith sand” [15]—was the rule in investigations involving high-level politicians, whichwere often transmitted to the “foggy harbor”—i.e. the Tribunal of Rome—where theywere de facto frozen by judges until the statute of limitation expiration, or produced theacquittal of defendants ([30], 255, [48]). Since the 1970s, however, “a growing auton-omy from the political class has interacted with the entry into the judiciary of a type ofjudge without social affinity to political elites” ([18], 4–5). Less sensitive to politicalinterference, Italian judges started to perceive themselves as charged by a civic missionof responsibility towards society and community ([45], 93–95). Such evolution of thejudges’ professional culture, with the adoption of a more activist conception of thejudicial role, had been strengthened during the 1970s and the 1980s, when magistratesassumed a leading role in the fight against terrorism and organized crime, sanctioned byassassination of some of them ([36], [18], 14). The support of the public then became anew and autonomous source of legitimization especially when judges started to inves-tigate on political malfeasance.

The polarization of the political system

By looking at the characteristics of the Italian party system, the country has beentraditionally analyzed as a case of polarized party pluralism ([56], 131–145). The systemwas characterized by a large number of relevant parties and by high levels of ideologicalpolarization. Some political cleavages were still rooted in the society and they did reflecta community polarized along ideological lines. For more than 40 years, electoralvolatility has been very low (see Fig. 2). Up to 1994, the Christian Democratic partyruled the country in coalition with other minor parties. Although Italy was not a caseof single-party electoral dominance, there was at least a single-party governmentdominance. No concrete alternatives were available, the second largest party—theCommunist Party—became and remained the main opposition party during thesame span of time.

By no coincidence, this electoral stability has also been explained by the relevanceplayed by political attachment of voters to their most ideologically favored party. Voterswere linked to party organizations by firm, well-rooted ideological and cultural ties; veryfrequently, these links were also of a clientelistic nature. Parisi and Pasquino [50] calledthis electorate as “affiliation vote”, rooted in the specific cultural tradition of the group towhich each voter belonged and in the political socialization mechanisms within this


group17. Trigilia [61] identifies two political subcultures, the so-called red one (socialistand communist) and the white one (Catholic culture), both territorially concentrated indifferent areas of the country: the red one in the central regions (Emilia-Romagna,Tuscany, Umbria, and the Marche), the white one in the eastern and northern regions, aswell as in the south.

The high degree of polarization of the Italian party system induced a tolerance towardscorrupt activities which political actors considered instrumental to achieve their politicalgoals.18 Ideological polarization and strong party identities addressing a significant quote ofthe electorate towards the affiliation vote, together with a fear for the presumably “anti-system” Communist party, determined a high level of tolerance towards malfeasanceespecially among the electorate of the ruling parties. In the trade-off between ideologicalaffiliation of candidates and their reputation for integrity, the first element therefore domi-nated electoral choices of significant numbers of citizens. This widespread and lastingattitude was first made explicit and rationalized during the 1976 political electioncampaign—after the “bad smell” of the first oil and the Lockheed scandals had spreaddistrust towards the Christian Democracy party—by one of the most famous Italianjournalists, Indro Montanelli, who launched a legendary public appeal to moderate electors“to hold one’s nose and vote Christian Democracy” ([27], 137). The campaign wassuccessful: in spite of the scandals, Christian Democracy slightly increased their consent,remaining the first party and avoiding the feared overtaking by the Communist Party.

The collapse of the party system in the early 1990s certainly created a dramaticpolitical vacuum into which most of the parties suddenly disappeared, but polariza-tion still played a pivotal role in structuring the new political system. The structuralpolarization of the system partially explains the lack of new single-issue anti-corruption parties in Italy just after the collapse of system in early 1990s. No politicalleaders profited immediately from the scandals by creating new parties focused inproviding representation for those people mobilized against former ruling parties andcorruption. In a few cases, some already existing parties (The Northern League,Movimento Sociale Italiano) strategically used scandals to break the 40-year-olddominance of the major ruling parties, but they placed themselves along traditional

17 According to Parisi and Pasquino [50], in Italy there have been at least three types of electoral behavior:the affiliation vote, based mainly on affiliation and ideological commitment to a party’s programme; thevote of exchange, which relies upon the expectation of private benefits from the administration of publicresources within the networks of mass clientelism; and the vote of opinion, oriented by a reasoned choice ofthe expected consequences of alternative policy proposals. Parisi and Pasquino’s model suggests a majorshift during the 1970s, with a reduction of voting behavior influenced by ideological cleavages, whiletraditional Italian mass-based parties lost their traditional basis of support, and a proportional increase ofopinion-oriented voting.18 Strong ideological conflicts in the arena of “visible politics” and of public discourse were neverthelessbalanced—especially since the 1970s—by a subterranean development of consociational agreementsconcerning the sharing of material resources allocated between the majority and the opposition, “frozen”in their reciprocal role by the lack of alternation in power at national level [53, 54]. While electoraljudgements could be targeted on the “official” activity of party and politicians, informal collusive practices(and illegal activities as well) soon become dominant in the invisible—and unaccountable, when notoccasionally exposed through judicial inquiries—dimension of the political activity. In Italy, so to say,the process of “cartelization” of parties—analyzed by Katz and Mair [39]—started within the “hiddenarena” of politics. Polarization still played—and plays—a decisive function on electoral accountability,since electors’ preferences and evaluations can be shaped only (or mainly) on the basis of what they canobserve on the surface of “visible” politics.


political axes19. The new parties presented themselves as challengers of the formercorrupt party system, but at the same time they strategically used the previousideological polarization to capture voters. Instead of providing representation tonew emerging cleavages, Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, based his campaign onanti-communism, keeping alive the old and deep left-right cleavage that was a featureof Italy during the First Republic. In other words, the polarization of the party systemanchored the confrontation along traditional political cleavages. Therefore, instead ofenhancing the degree of representation of anti-corruption issues in the politicalprocess, polarization limited the available options for a significant part of voters.

Moreover, in Italy electoral accountability has been traditionally affected by other formsof voter mobilization. Policy-making in Italy during the so-called First Republic has beendepicted as characterized by “extreme partisan pluralism mixed with clientelism” ([29],265). Particularism as a logic of interaction between electors and political bosses hascharacterized the Italian democracy since its foundation in the 1940s. A distributive powerover public resources (jobs in the public sector, licenses, subsides, privileged access to thestate benefits, “protection” from tax collection, etc.) was used by politicians, and it repre-sented a stable source of electoral consent, particularly in southern Italy [8, 32, 52]. Thequantitative relevance of vote of exchange in Italy undermined electoral accountability ofpolitical malfeasance both on a strategic and a symbolic basis [50]. Entrapped in a prisoner’sdilemma-like situation, voters who have received or expect to get personal profit fromcorrupt politicians find a “rational”motive to support him.Moreover, the perceived diffusionof patron–client relationships at every level of government has been a powerful generator ofdistrust towards the institutional system and the political class, symbolically legitimizing thepatrimonialistic logic and the particularistic dimension of politics. As a consequence, Italiancitizens have traditionally shown very high levels of distrust and dissatisfaction towardspolitical institutions and the political class [46, 47]. The “specific support” obtained bypolitical bosses and parties with the implementation of particularistic micro-policies in thelong term increasingly weakened overall confidence in democratic institutions. Pessimisticexpectations, in turn, fostered electors’ acceptance or resignation towards clientelisticallocation of resources, and also illegal practices. As a mechanism to transmit and satisfyparticularistic political demands, generating political support [52], the development ofclientelism in Italy is intertwined with corruption in a vicious circle [19]. The spread ofvote-buying—linked to the presence of clientelism—raised in fact the cost of politics,forcing politicians to seek material resources to invest in their political activity.20

19 A few years later, new single-issue anti-corruption parties emerged: in 1998 the Italia dei Valori led bythe former prosecutor in Milan, Antonio Di Pietro, and more recently, in 2009, the Movimento 5 stelle thatsuccessfully profited from a new criminalization wave of corrupt practices, and also thanks to the leadershipof the comedian, Beppe Grillo.20 Another facilitating factor which explains the scarce electoral accountability of corrupt politicians insome areas of Italy is the role played by the Mafia, Camorra and Ndrangheta in at least three regions ofsouthern Italy. Criminal organizations, in fact, operate as suppliers of protection, reducing uncertainty ininformal and illegal deals that involve politicians and electors. For instance, “although the market for votesexists also in other areas of Italy where there is no mafia, in Sicily it appears to be larger and more efficient”([31], 184). Collusion with criminal organizations is not effectively sanctioned at either the electoral or theparty level. Salvatore Cuffaro, for example, was re-elected as President of Sicily in 2006 while he wasunder trial for alleged collusion with organized crime. Cuffaro was finally convicted in 2008 and sentencedto 7 years, and later jailed in 2011 after the Supreme Court confirmed his sentence. Being backed by acriminal organization—with its threatening potential—may therefore be a decisive resource for a party or apolitician, counterbalancing in the ballots his “bad reputation”—or, paradoxically, rewarding it [25, 66].


Two further mechanisms enhanced this polarization21, also changing the dimensionof conflicts: the emergence of “personal parties” and the mediatization of politics. Italy,in fact, experienced a dramatic change of parties as organizations, especially as catalystsof the relationship between government on the one hand and with citizens on the other[39]. Moreover, the collapse of the major ruling parties in the early 1990s facilitated theemergence of new forms of ‘personal parties’ established around the figure of singleleader [5]. This effect was also fostered by a presidentialization of politics, as a result ofthe adoption of some institutional and electoral reforms (the direct election of mayorsand regional governors), and the increasing leadership power and autonomy within thepolitical executive and parties. [55]

The second process refers to the increasing role of the mass media, and television inparticular, as agents of political socialization [44]. The amount and perceived reliabilityof information provided by the media system can explain much of the variation we haveobserved in the Italian case. The apparent indifference of Italian voters to charges ofmalfeasance, according to Chang et al. ([6], 206), can be understood by looking at theinformation environment which did not provide any adequate media coverage on newsabout corruption beforeMani Pulite: “Efforts to expose networks of political corruptionthat led to the highest echelon of power were inevitably frustrated (…). In addition, thenewspaper that publicized the investigation were sued”. The Italian model of interactionbetween political and media system—akin to the pluralist polarization—has in fact beentraditionally characterized by low newspaper circulation, politically oriented press, highpolitical parallelism, government broadcast governance, the large role of the State asowner, regulator, or financer of the media, weak professionalization, and limitedautonomy of journalism from the political power. The government—Hallin andMancini[37] observe—“has historically limited the tendency of the media to play the ‘watchdog’role so widely valued in the prevailing liberal media theory. The financial dependence ofmedia on the state, and the persistence of restrictive rules on privacy and on thepublication of official information have combined with the intertwining of media andpolitical elites”. Since journalists were reluctant about reporting information on politi-cians’ involvement in corruption scandal, judicial inquiries could have only a limitedimpact, mainly through an “elite reaction” of the few well-informed and politicallyinterested citizens.

Much evidence supports these hypotheses. A comparison between cultural consump-tion in Italy and otherWestern democracies highlights an important difference: Italy has,relatively speaking, a low level of print press circulation and a high level of televisionconsumption [43]. For this reason, Italy is considered as a polarized/pluralist modelmarked by high television consumption and low print press circulation [37]. This‘television centrism’ is crucial in explaining our outcome of interest, i.e. the politiciza-tion of anti-corruption. In fact, if a large part of Italian citizens—a larger percentage thanin other Western democracies—depends on television for their everyday information,and one of the main political leader of the country, Silvio Berlusconi, controls a largepart of television output. As a PrimeMinister, particularly, Berlusconi obtained “indirectcontrol over up to 90% of the country’s broadcast media through the state-owned outlets

21 It is crucial to highlight that voter polarization is much different from party polarization, and further fromeffective party polarization, especially in a country like Italy where collusion among parties is a charac-teristic of the system.


and his own private media holdings. He is the main shareholder of Mediaset, whichowns several television channels; the country’s largest magazine publisher, Mondadori;and its largest advertising company, Publitalia. Publitalia controls 65 % of the televisionadvertising market” [28]. Since 1994, the conflict of interests of Berlusconi were in factnot regulated and he maintained, as a political leader under inquiry for corruption andfalse accounting crimes, a direct influence over private channels, radio, and newspapers,which normally backed his political campaigns [67].Morevoer, the three channels of thestate-owned broadcaster have remained under the indirect control of the executive,fostering self-censorship and political interference on the editorial lines.22 It is not onlya question of political communication, it is also a question of democracy. 23

The control of media and information, in fact, creates the opportunity to alsoinfluence those voters who are neither ideologically nor clientelistically attached tothe parties, the so-called opinion voters. If we analyze the data on television con-sumption, we find that Berlusconi voters are even more dependent on television thanthe average Italian citizens. Different indicators support this conclusion. Table 3shows that, in 2008, those who voted for Berlusconi were somewhat more dependenton television for their information than those who voted for his opponent, WalterVeltroni (41.4 vs. 36.3 %).

This political relevance of media can be easily found if we study the connectionbetween voters and television networks’ viewers. According to the Itanes survey in2008, ‘the importance of television is associated with one of the major characteristicsof the election in the Second Republic: the alignment between electoral choices andTV consumption’ [41].

22 Reporters Sans Frontieres,WorldReport 2010: Italy, in http://en.rsf.org/report-italy,111.html (accessed February 11,2011). A direct impact of political majorities on news content and orientation in Italian public television after the 2011general elections has been demonstrated by Durante, R. and Knight, B., Partisan Control, Media Bias, and ViewerResponses: Evidence from Berlusconi’s Italy, working paper, October 2008, in http://www.business.uzh.ch/professor-ships/entrepreneurship/workshops/media/DuranteKnight221008.pdf (accessed February 11, 2011).23 “Because of the well-established alliances between media corporations and political parties and groupsthat existed even before the beginning of the political adventure of Berlusconi, the Italian Parliament hasnot been able to reach an agreement on limiting the enormous concentration of media power in the hands ofa single person. The traditional overlap between mass media and politics, that has for centuries been acharacteristic feature of the Italian public sphere, has prevented the adoption of any anti-concentrationlegislation in the field of mass media. Berlusconi has taken advantage of this absence, and he has been veryhappy to preserve it ([43], 33–51)”.

Table 3 Sources of information for voters in the 2008 legislative elections (%); [43], and Itanes 2008(http://www.itanes.org/index.asp?s=dati)

Radio Television Newspapers Meeting,demonstrations,etc.

Internet

Partito Democratico (Veltroni) 17.4 36.4 29.9 8.1 8.2

Popolo della Libertà (Berlusconi) 17.7 41.4 28.9 6 5.9

Other voters 18.6 36.4 28.2 6.6 10.2

No answer 17 43.1 30 4 6


http://en.rsf.org/report-italy,111.html

http://www.business.uzh.ch/professorships/entrepreneurship/workshops/media/DuranteKnight221008.pdf

http://www.business.uzh.ch/professorships/entrepreneurship/workshops/media/DuranteKnight221008.pdf


Table 4 shows the association between TV news consumption and party prefer-ences. Berlusconi’s party voters (PdL) likely prefer to watch Mediaset channels. If welook at Canale5 (the major Mediaset channel), 50.9 % vote for the PdL, while only10.1 % vote for center-left major party, the PD. Conversely, PD voters likely prefer towatch public TV news (RAI) and especially RAI3 is the favorite one (44.4 % of thosewho watch RAI3 vote PD while only 9.1 % vote PdL).

How does this polarization ofmedia consumption affect the political systemwhen thelatter reacts against judicial activism? According toMancini [43], “this would appear notto encourage the sharing of a field of common interests and values; instead, it pushes thesociety towards a polarisation of political options and affiliations—and these, untilrecently, have helped make possible the recurring victories of the center-right”.

An example of polarization of opinion is the one on the perception of voters aboutthe honesty of the candidates. In Table 5, we see that voters do not perceiveBerlusconi as an honest politician in both elections (only 24 % in 2006 and 29 %in 2008) against center-left candidates (58 % believe that Prodi was honest; 61 %think the same for the candidate in 2008, Walter Veltroni). As the data show, manyBerlusconi voters who electorally support him do not perceive him as trustworthy.Further analyses would be crucial to shed light on this voter behavior.

Table 4 TV news consumption by voter (%); [43], and Itanes 2008 (http://www.itanes.org/index.asp?s=dati)

TV channel PD PDL Other voters Sample size

Rai1 33.3 24.2 42.4 702

Rai2 32.1 18.5 49.5 81

Rai3 44.4 9.1 46.4 297

Canale5 10.1 50.9 39.1 525

Italia1 11.7 39.4 49 94

Rete4 6.8 59.3 33.9 59

La7 32 14 54 50

Others 22.3 19.4 58.3 139

Table 5 Voters’ perception on political leaders in 2006 and 2008 elections (%); source: Itanes 2006, 2008(http://www.itanes.org/index.asp?s=dati)

2006 2008

Prodi Berlusconi Veltroni Berlusconi

Honest 58 24 61 29

Understanding people’s problems 63 37 62 52

Competence 61 54 61 56

Strong leader 44 89 39 82




The politicization of anti-corruption and judicial prosecution

How and to what extent has judicial activism been politicized in Italy? To study thisphenomenon empirically, we first distinguish between different forms of politiciza-tion (institution, decision-making, decisions). Regarding the politicization of thejudiciary as an institution, Italy is a crucial case to be considered. The high institu-tional and internal independence of the judiciary has always been a target of thoseparties presenting this autonomy as a source of unbalanced political power of thejudges. In several cases, in fact, politicians under investigation have claimed theintrusion of the judiciary into a “sphere of electoral politics” which lies outside of itsinstitutional domain. According to these claims, prosecutors use instrumental inqui-ries on corruption crimes to eliminate their presumed “political opponents”. Amongthe political leaders who systematically contest the judiciary in this way, SilvioBerlusconi has played a pivotal role in this process since the beginning of his politicalcareer when, as Prime Minister, he was put under investigation for corruption crimesin November 1994. The claim that he is the victim of a vindictive, left wing judiciaryhas been a key part of Berlusconi’s political campaigns ever since he first came topower in the mid-1990s. His knowledge of media communication also explains theefficacy of the messages he sent to mobilize his followers. He has repeatedly claimedto be the target of political persecution by communist judges, called by him “redrobes”. We may take a small sample of public statements issued byBerlusconi—covering the whole time span of his political career—to describe thisprocess. In 1998 as leader of the opposition he said:

TheMinister of Justice is conditioned by the pressure of judges, organs of the Left,who in trying to implement a precise political project using judicial mechanisms toeliminate their political opponents, treading on the law, judicial procedure andreality with false inquiries, inventing witnesses, contradictory accusations, show-trials and hideous sentences . . . Well, in this way certain magistrates, in particularthose that belong to the ‘party of prosecutors’, will continue to massacre individualliberties, to decide the legitimacy of governments (…). They may also be capableof choosing the leader of the opposition, forcing it to remain in a permanentminority: they will thus become the referees of political life, substituting theirchoices for the free choices of the electorate (La Repubblica, September 5 1998).

In 2009, as Prime Minister, he declared: “The Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi.The Italian anomaly are communist prosecutors and communist judges inMilan. OnlywhenI started my political career defeating the Communists I was charged in 103 trials” (ReutersItaly, October 28, 2009). In 2013, as candidate for the premiership, Berlusconi affirmed:“They [the judges] are going on with those processes, which are reported by foreignnewspapers in countries where the magistracy is impartial, but in Italy the magistracy is amafia, more dangerous than the Sicilian mafia” (La Repubblica, February 23, 2013). Whenhewas found guilty of tax fraud by aMilan court in 2012 and sentenced to 4 years in prison,he retorted that the decision was “a political sentence, the way so many other trials inventedagainst me have been political”. However, the target of Berlusconi’s politicization has notonly been the judiciary involved in criminal prosecutions but also in the settlements of civildisputes. Once, questioned on the La7 private television network about his divorce from hissecond wife, Berlusconi questioned the court’s settlement, saying “These are three women


judges, feminists and communists, OK? These are the Milan judges who have persecutedme since 1994.” (The Guardian, January 9 2013).

The politicization of the judiciary as institution, however, did not produce any institu-tional reforms aiming at limiting the independence of the system, such as the reform of therecruitment process and career path or the dismantlement of the High Council that tradi-tionally preserves the judiciary from the influence of the executive. Some policy reformsproposed to change it encountered both a procedural (Constitution) and political resistanceof opposition parties and public opinion. Conversely, the politicization of the decision-making has been quite effective. The “new” ruling parties passed awide range of corruption-enhancing regulation, which both symbolically and practically reaffirmed the predominanceof the political over the judicial power, thereby hindering “judicial accountability” of corruptpoliticians and discouraging confessions [65] 24. As a result, after the 1994 election, judicialprosecution of corruption became increasingly difficult—due to a combination of slowjudicial machinery and the successful of obstructionist defendants’ tactics—and the numberof investigations, as shown by Fig. 1, sharply decreased in the following years ([20], 844).

Moreover, the systemic loopholes in the judicial system made the prosecution ofcorruption crimes ineffective most of the time. In particular, as reported by Trans-parency International

It is the combination of lengthy proceedings with short absolute statute of limitationsfor offenses such as the falsification of balance sheets, the abuse of functions andtrading in influence, as well as the lack of political will to close loopholes, whichhamper the prosecution of corruption cases. The fact that proceedings can prescribeafter the first instance, even if an offender has already been found guilty, is particularlystriking ([58], 40–42).

The statistics show that, since 2005, between 10 and 13 % of all criminal courtproceedings have been ended due to statute of limitations (no data ar availablespecifically for corruption-related cases), meaning that more than 1 in 10 trials endedwith impunity for the alleged offender [14]. This number is particularly high andraises serious concerns about the efficacy of the Italian justice system, and showsclearly that these loopholes are a significant reason for impunity in corruption cases.As a consequence of this, the lack of convictions negatively impacts the legitimacy ofjudicial activism because it leaves the floor to those politicization actors that strate-gically question the impartiality of inquiries and prosecutions.

The result of this has been a politicization of public opinion on single decisionsand investigations. According to our working definition, we would define a countryas polarized, whereby not only the independence of the judiciary is questioned butthis issue is also politically contentious. To address this third form of politicizationempirically, we now analyze some data on trust in institutions and political attach-ment of Europeans (European Values Survey). By using these data, we find that only

24 Among the corruption-enhancing measures, we may quote the de-criminalization of abuse in office (law234/1997) and false accounting (law 61/2002); the guarantee of immunity for holders of the highest officesof state (laws 140/2003 and 124/2008); the requirement of parliamentary authorization for prosecutors’collection of evidence on MPs’ crimes and imposition of restrictive measures (aw 140/2003); the reductionof time limits specified by the statute of limitations also for corruption crimes (law 251/2005); thepossibility of regularizing financial assets hidden abroad, even if derived from illegal or corrupt activities(law 102//2009).


in Italy is the placement of the citizens along a left/right axis significantly correlated withtheir confidence in the judicial system. As stated in the previous section, in a well-functioning democracy, the confidence in the judiciary would not depend on the politicalparty attachment of citizens. When this is true, however, we would expect that moreconservative voters are more confident in the judiciary as enforcers of law and order. InFig. 3, a clear difference between Italy and the rest of Europe is depicted.

In Italy, center-left voters are more likely to support and trust the judicial system(more than 50 % of them), compared to center-right voters, who, on the contrary,totally disagree on the performance of the same system (more than 70 % lackedconfidence in judges). This picture diverges totally from the European one in whichthere are no differences between left and right voters in supporting the judiciary. Inboth cases, more than 60 % of voters have confidence in the system. According tosome raw estimates of this relationship, we found that this is only significant in thecase of Italy. Data show that, only in Italy, as a voter moves towards the right of thepolitical axis, their confidence in the judiciary significantly decreases.

Conclusion

This article aims at explaining the failure of electoral accountability as a result of aconflicting interaction between judicial activism and a polarized political system. Politicalactors do not necessarily keep anti-corruption inquiries off the political debate, but, on thecontrary, they can strategically question their impartiality. This polarization of opinionsabout judicial investigations against corruption can be strategically advanced towards thepolitical debate by political actors, political leaders, andmedia. This is a political option opento parties that can lead to a crystallization of a new dimension of political conflict. In thisway, political actors affect electoral accountability, diminishing the risk of electoral punish-ment. In Italy, this process has been fostered by some exogenous events such as theincreasing independence of the judiciary and the still-prevailing relevance ofmore traditionalcleavages (left/right) on new forms of conflicts. Media have been the main channel inshaping a politicization of judicial activism, thanks to the direct influence of political actorsover public and private television networks, radio, and newspapers.

Italy Rest of Europe

Source: European Values Survey (rounds 2008, 2009).

Fig. 3 Confidence in the judicial system according to voters’ placement along the left/right axis


Similar patterns of political change and crises of accountability mechanismscan also occur in other countries. Therefore, it would be useful for corruptionstudies to take into account the strategic responses that political actors can carryout against anti-corruption initiatives, and the unexpected outcomes of policytransformations.

Acknowledgements The research leading to these results has received funding from the EuropeanCommunity's Seventh Framework Programme ([FP7/2007-2013,] [FP7/2007-2011]) under grant agreementno. 290529 - Project ANTICORRP. The authors are grateful for useful advice and suggestions fromDonatella della Porta.

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