CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Elite Cartels 99
that was part of its raison d’être (Waters, 1994: 180). Anti-coalition parties
won nearly 32 percent of the vote, while the DC, which had never won an
outright majority, fell below 30 percent (Buffachi and Burgess, 1998: 41)
and unusually large numbers of voters stayed home.
Tangentopoli and mani pulite began quietly enough: an investigation in
Milan led to the arrest of Mario Chiesa, a mid-level PSI figure, on charges
of receiving bribes while managing a state-run senior citizens facility.
Luca Magni, a small business operator weary of paying kickbacks on
cleaning contracts, had gone to the police with his evidence. Chiesa was
jailed, refusing at first to cooperate with investigating judges, but perhaps
because of pressure from his wife, who was making an issue of Chiesa’s
inexplicable wealth in the course of divorce proceedings, he began to talk.
Soon the judges had solid evidence of a network of bribery, business
politicians, bureaucrats, and inter-party collusion running right through
city and regional government. Surprisingly large numbers of businessmen
gave evidence to the judges, implicating others who then found it prudent
to talk in order to avoid (or shorten) imprisonment. Judges filed 228
requests for waivers of parliamentary immunity – a necessary first step
in investigating any sitting member – in connection with over 600 crimes;
eventually parliament accepted 111 of those requests. Major bureaucrats
were likewise investigated, tried, and jailed. Judges in effect decimated
the nation’s political class and their networks of corruption. Voters
helped too: in March, 1994, they effectively ended the First Republic
by voting the old party system out of existence. The results were partially
shaped by 1993 electoral reforms ending the party-list/‘‘preference vote’’
system and party-based financing arrangements that had made party
cashiers and factional leaders so powerful, but they were also a massive
rejection of the old political elite (Golden, 2002: 4).
Why the sudden collapse? One answer is that it was not so sudden at all.
In part because of corruption, the parties had been faltering electorally
and organizationally for a generation. By the 1990s party memberships
had fallen by half or more (Della Porta and Vannucci, 2002; Della Porta,
2004), ideology and policy commitments had given way to mercenary
motivations, and ‘‘business politicians’’ were extending their dominance.
Parties had to buy services and loyalty they had once commanded on
ideological grounds, thereby driving up the cost of politics and the need
for sizeable kickbacks (Della Porta and Vannucci, 1999, 2002; Della
Porta, 2004). They were not only more vulnerable in the open political
arena; behind the scenes party leaders were less able to serve as guarantors
for corrupt deals or provide protection for those involved. Economic
changes further weakened the corrupt system: Golden (2002) argues that
gradual reductions in state spending, under pressures from the EU and