Donatella della Porta - Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources, and Mechanisms of Political Corruption

Actors,
Resources,
and Mechanisms
of Political
Corruption

First published 1999 by Transaction Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

2012013859

ISBN 13: 978-0-202-30600-1 (pbk)

This book reports on three different pieces of research: the first research was conducted by Donatella della Porta at the European University Institute in Florence; the second constitutes Alberto Vannucci's Ph.D. and post Ph.D. research at the faculty of Political Science of the University of Pisa; and the third was led jointly by the two authors under the sponsorship of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, under the Special Program on the Public Administration. Donatella della Porta worked on the final revisions of the book during a sabbatical year at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin with a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. We wish to thank all these institutions for their logistic support, and our colleagues and mentors Sabino Cassese, Raimondo Cubeddu and Alessandro Pizzorno for their scientific advice.

Some results of our research have been discussed at the following meetings: the Joint Sessions of European Consortium for Political Research in Leiden (April 1993); the conference on "Illegalit-legalit e ceti emergenti nel cambiamento delle societ europee" organized by the Istituto di sociologia internazionale in Gorizia (October 1993); the international conference on "Corruption and Democracy" at the Observatoire du Changement Social en Europe Occidentale in Poitier (November 1993); the Conference on "Tangentopoli e la crisi del sistema politico italiano," organized by the Robert Schuman Center at the European University Institute in Florence (January 1994); the Conference on "Reconstituting Italy: Sources of Pathology and Forces for Reform," at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University (February 1994); the workshop on "La crisi dei partiti in Italia," organized by the Istituto Gramsci of Turin (May 1994); the Annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (London, November 1994); the International Conference on "Democracies between Crisis and Reform. Comparing Italy and Belgium" held in Brussels (September 1995); the International workshop on "Political Corruption" in Nottingham (May 1996); the International Conference on "Political Corruption" at the University of Salford (November 1996); the International Conference on "Political Corruption in Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, Italy and Franco Compared" in Brussels (December 1997); the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research in Warwick (March 1998); the International Conference on "Public Trust and Governance in the Trilateral Democracies" in the Bellagio Study and Conference Center of the Rock- feller Foundation (June 1998). We are grateful to our colleagues who organized and participated in those occasionsamong them, Arnaldo Bag- nasco, Jean Cartier-Bressons, Martin Bull, Giacomo Costa, Arnold Heidenheimer, Paul Heywood, David Hine, Francesco Kijllberg, Jean- Francois Medard, Henri Mendras, Yves Meny, Leonardo Morlino, James Newal, Susan Pharr, Bob Putnam, Vincent Wright, Lieven de Winterfor very stimulating discussions.

The authors are obliged to all those who helped them collect the thousands and thousands of pages, mainly judicial materials, on which much of their research is based. Among the judges who helped us, special thanks go to Gherardo Colombo, Michele Del Gaudio, Antonio Di Pietro, Pier- camillo Davigo, Filippo Grisolia, Francesco Greco, Fausto Izzo, Giovanni Leonardi, Guido Lo Forte, Leonardo Guarnotta, Marco Maria Maiga, Rosario Minna, Fabio Napoleone, Guido Papalia, Vittorio Paraggio, Luca Pistorelli and Ottavio Sferlazza. For her help in the collection of parliamentary sources we are grateful to Dottoressa Emilia Lamaro. Moreover, we are profoundly indebted to the dozens of interviewees who trusted us not only with their time, but also with their confidence.

This work derives from a constantfruitful and friendlycollaboration between the two authors. Alberto Vannucci has collected and excerpted most of the judicial materials; Donatella della Porta has run the case studies of three Italian cities, mainly based on in-depth interviews. In a long (almost endless) procedure, all the chapters have gone back and forward from Florence to Pisa and vice-versa, until both authors were satisfied with the results. For the record, Donatella della Porta has produced the final version of , 8. The conclusion was jointly written. John Donaldson translated the whole manuscript with competence and care. Richard Koffler at Aldine de Gruyter gave good advice (not only linguistic) about the translation of our Italian production for an international public. We hope it was worthwhile.