After the Tangentopoli years, media silence and political disinterest were the sole protagonists in the fight against corruption . Today, however, national news reports and judicial investigations , bringing the phenomenon back into the spotlight, leave little room for interpretation: if we cannot speak of a second Tangentopoli, it is only because the centers of power, once recognized solely by the Christian Democrat party authority, have become liberalized, democratized, and multiplied.
As he pointed out Stefano Bisi, Grand Master of the Masonic lodge “Grande Oriente d'Italia”, the corrupt system in Italy is characterized by a harmonious tangle of relationships, exchanges and resources between public and private bodies, organizations, lobbies and lodges. In this general magna magna, no political color can hold: from right to left, from East to West, the Italian empire of corruption reigns supreme without fear of internal rebellion. The "Black Lady," the "Tsarina of Dentures" or also known as "Dentopoli," "The Middle World" or "Mafia Capitale," the "G8 Investigation," despite their great media attraction, are not the titles of crime-themed television dramas, but judicial investigations, in which the suspects (politicians, administrators, and entrepreneurs), await, like the old viewers of the series "La Piovra," the last episode of Italian justice.
the Index of Perceptions of Systemic Corruption in Italy
Meanwhile, the latter cannot be considered anything other than simple suspects in a crime or presumed innocent. Judicial investigations attempting to repress and combat a phenomenon now deeply rooted in our country ( Transparency International states that the CPI in Italy, the Corruption Perception Index, is the second highest in Europe) offer interesting insights, especially through telephone interceptions , to paint a "realistic" picture of the phenomenon. To develop policies to prevent and combat corruption, it is first necessary to precisely define the problem.
Corruption in Italy has taken on a systemic character. It is nothing more than a sophisticated network of relationships and exchanges between individuals who hold power in decision-making processes and, like an autarchic economy , produce and redistribute resources within it. The network of corruption thus created has a power center tasked with dividing resources, according to a logic of favoritism , and managing disputes. Political advancement becomes the dominant imperative.
Systemic corruption
In order to survive, this organizational structure has established informal rules of conduct, recognized and accepted by all. See, for example, the fixed-kickback system (each contract, based on the services provided, has a specific price to be paid in bribes; these are usually referred to as fixed percentages, e.g., the "10% system") or the more classic code of silence . In this way, the system tends to self-regulate and establish order. Furthermore, informal regulation tends to resolve internal and external problems, thus ensuring trust among its members. This is usually ensured by one principle: systemic corruption rewards the decision-maker, not the individual decision. Sometimes, in large-scale coastal trades, compliance with the rules is enforced by criminal organizations.
The corrupt modus operandi, in addition to being structured and governed by a complex set of rules, can be considered systemic because it is embedded and rooted in our country's political and administrative institutions . It creates a cultural climate that justifies distorted rules, beliefs, and actions. Given this, corruption represents nothing more than the flipside of our country's mismanagement , where a minority colludes to make decisions that deviate from the general interest (definition from the National Anti-Corruption Authority).
The current situation
The characteristics of corruption highlighted thus far, such as its systemic nature, its deep roots, and the cultural context in which it is embedded, create numerous challenges for the judicial system 's counteraction and ANAC's prevention policies. Regarding the former, our criminal justice system, through increasingly stringent legislation, severely punishes the corrupt (Articles 317, 318, and 319 of the Criminal Code). Unfortunately, our legal system still has a disconnect between the actual phenomenon and the corresponding crime, as the criminal code tends to punish individual, unrelated acts rather than the corruption system as a whole. This prevents the judiciary from taking comprehensive action to combat the phenomenon.
Il National Anti-Corruption Plan
Furthermore, a solely repressive response could simply and counterproductively increase the cost of corruption. To eradicate the problem, prevention policies, currently entrusted to the ANAC (National Anti-Corruption Authority), and policies to spread a culture of legality should be implemented. To this end, the anti-corruption authority has established a National Anti-Corruption Plan that identifies macro-objectives to be achieved and identifies at-risk areas and individuals through formal indicators and red flags (alarm bells such as the number of extensions and amendments, execution times, etc.).
Finally, it provides for the preparation of a three-year anti-corruption plan for local authorities , which unfortunately suffer from limited financial and organizational resources, a widespread attitude of mere compliance, isolation of those responsible for corruption (marked political disinterest), and inadequate risk and context analyses. Furthermore, aside from small tools such as the incompatibility mechanism, the entire prevention measure demonstrates a lack of oversight of political activity.
Are corrupt exchanges considered fair?
Ultimately, social factors cannot be ignored. These include the collective definition and value that stakeholders place on the incentive structure designed to discourage corruption. Are corrupt exchanges considered fair? What degree of stigma do corrupt actors face? The answers must be sought in the broader system of social control and the scale of values prevalent in a given society.
For example, a corrupt individual's moral violation may be justified by specific circumstances: one admits to having committed a crime because of one's poverty, or one accepts an informal monetary reward because one deserves it (the "neutralization principle," Sykes and Matza, 1957). These phenomena demonstrate the low level of social control and stigmatization of the corrupt actor, a deficient diffusion of the culture of legality, and express the awareness that the path to eradicating corruption is long and tortuous and requires, above all, profound institutional, political, and social renewal.
Angelo Luongo
