Political corruption in Italy:  Many investigations, few convictions?

Carlo Guarnieri; Cristina Dallara; Michele Sapignoli

doi:10.15448/1984-7289.2020.3.37879

Authors

Carlo Guarnieri University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1514-749X
Cristina Dallara University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5590-4213
Michele Sapignoli University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7628-8288

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2020.3.37879

Keywords:

corruption, prosecution, Italy, criminal justice, media

Abstract

At least since the 1990s, corruption has continued to be listed as one of the major shortcomings affecting old and new European democracies. In spite of that, measuring political corruption is still a tricky task. In this scenario, some recent studies proposed to turn the attention to the judicial actions to curb corruption, through criminal prosecution, shedding light specifically on the investigations involving high-level politicians (Popova and Post 2018; Dallara 2019). In this paper we aim to present data about judicial prosecution of political corruption in Italy, emphasizing how the number of investigations involving political actors seems rather high, although relatively few cases end with a conviction. Moreover, we aim to suggest some explanatory factors that could account for this situation. Among them: the salience of the issue in the political and public debate; the governance structure of the Italian judicial system and some characters of the Italian criminal law and procedure.

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Author Biographies

Carlo Guarnieri, University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy.

Alma Mater honorary professor at the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Adjunct professor of the department of Political and Social Sciences at the same university. He taught also at the University of Calabria, the High School of Public Administration in Rome, the University of California, Berkeley, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and the University of Montpellier.

Cristina Dallara, University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy.

Associate professor in Political Science at the University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy). Jean Monnet Post-doctoral Fellow at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies – European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy.

Michele Sapignoli, University of Bologna (Unibo), Bologna, Italy.

Professor of Political Science in the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Doctorate in Methodology of Social and Political Science from the University of Rome, Rome, Italy.

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