CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

96 Syndromes of Corruption
The real political competition took place behind the party façade
among political factions increasingly dominated by business politicians
(Della Porta and Vannucci, 1999, 2002; Della Porta, 2004). The pre-
1993 party-list system, in which voters expressed preferences among
various candidates, exacerbated intra-party contention by forcing competition
among politicians of the same party. Campaign finance was
channeled through the parties legally and through faction leaders illicitly.
Competing factions bought support with extensive local patronage
(Moss, 1995; Golden, 2003: 198–204), further driving up the appetite
for cash (Golden and Chang, 2001; Della Porta, 2004). Factions and the
distribution of spoils extended across party lines (Della Porta, 2004)asa
way of minimizing the risks of losing office. Left–right distinctions
became mostly pro forma; broad policy initiatives were absent and
would have had little credibility. Elections served to preserve the status
quo and to define the parameters of the next rounds of lottizzazione,rather
than to oust ineffective governments or reward success. At times, the DC
coalition functioned almost as a national ‘‘super-party’’ (Della Porta and
Vannucci, 2002:726).
Corruption ultimately led to the downfall of the First Republic. But in
other ways the elite linkages it reflected and sustained were the skeleton
and nerves of the system. Corruption eased conflict, controlled the scope
and risks of electoral competition, and made unworkable laws and agencies
at least somewhat effective. It both thrived upon, and partially compensated
for, the weakness of state institutions, political parties, and popular
allegiances. Italians would have been better served by genuinely competitive
parties rooted in real social interests, and by a less-politicized
economy. But given the weakness of the state and the persistence of
factionalism it is unclear how real those alternatives were.
Secret networks and failed reforms
Corruption has long been a fact of Italian life (Waquet, 1996, discusses
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; on corruption as a continuing
presence in the post-World War Two era see Chang and Golden, 2004).
The practices that ultimately led to tangentopoli and mani pulite, however,
were of relatively recent origins. Much of the wrongdoing in the early
First Republic was non-systematic and relatively modest in scale; one of
the most notable 1960s scandals revolved around the import and sale of
bananas, for example. Beginning with the ‘‘petrol scandal’’ of 1973,
however, corruption grew dramatically in frequency and scope, and
became more systematic (Hine, 1995: 185–186; Rhodes, 1997: 56;
Della Porta and Vannucci, 1999; Golden and Chang, 2001: 595).