CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Elite Cartels 101
parties’’ in which state and party extensively interpenetrated while real
competition withered away (Katz and Mair, 1995; RhodesandPujas,
2002). When change came it was abrupt and devastating; interlocking networks
of mutually guaranteed deals may have helped control electoral
competition for quite some time, but they were poorly adaptive in the face
of accumulating pressures for more basic political and economic change.
Variations on that theme also became apparent a few years later in Korea’s
economic crisis, as we shall see.
In several respects Elite Cartel corruption in Italy may seem a reprise of
Japan. Major business payments to parties in exchange for policy favors
sustained an electoral hegemony that lasted nearly half a century. The two
countries’ dominant parties eventually suffered unprecedented electoral
defeats at about the same time. But the similarities are limited. Italy’s bureaucracy
was not nearly as autonomous or effective as Japan’s, and its business
sector was dominated by political parties to a far greater extent. In this sense
the reach of money politics was more pervasive than in Japan (Buffachi and
Burgess, 1998: 85). The LDP dealt in access to a strong, autonomous
bureaucracy, but Italian parties permeated the state such that bureaucrats
and state agencies were often the intermediaries between business and the
parties (Waters, 1994: 171; Della Porta, 2002: 721–722). Italian parties
took advantage of the weakness of the state, but the DC stayed in power
only through extensive collusion with the PSI and other parties, making use
of a Communist opposition whose threat was more illusory than real. When
the LDP lost it was in an election, and via the electoral system the party was
back in power within a year. When the DC-led party cartel collapsed, the
First Republic and its entire political class collapsed with it.
In fact the political implosion of 1992–4 illustrates some implications of
Elite Cartel corruption. Elite networks based on corruption may be informal
substitutes for state, political and social institutions, but over time they
can become inflexible and thereby fragile (Nelken, 1996). They are built
upon deals that can be difficult to enforce. Over time, instabilities can arise:
leaders may keep too large a share of the spoils, and the price of politics may
rise faster than the supply of corrupt incentives. For insiders political change
can(andin1994did)meannotjusttemporarydefeatbutthelossof
everything. Thus, Elite Cartels will not necessarily adapt to new political
realities or internal tensions. In the face of a major external shock – tangentopoli,
in the Italian case – Elite Cartels may not so much bend as break.
Past tense, or present?
A decade after tangentopoli it is still unclear whether we should discuss
Italy’s Elite Cartel corruption in the past or present tense. Today’s