Italy has made some progress over the last decade, but its performance on e-government and transparency is still below its potential. Too close ties remain between interest groups and key actors supposed to be autonomous, such as the judiciary or the media. While regulatory quality has improved somewhat, and the administrative burden decreased, political parties continue to be too involved in the appointments of public officials and the handling of great public contracts. The organized crime, contained in the South, has spread its influence in the rest of the country through apparently legitimate businesses who compete for municipal services. The high human development of Italy does not translate into sufficient e-citizenry action at community and sector level to control corruption.
Country: Italy
Building Good Governance in Greece, a European Missed Opportunity?
Corruption has risen on the European agenda considerably from the last European elections and is
likely to play a prominent role in the 2019 campaign for European Parliament. But while pro-European
parties will advocate for a stronger Europe and populist parties might try to blame all corruption on Brussels
and mainstream parties, a deeper understanding on the linkage EU-national government in curbing
corruption becomes imperative. This paper uses the case of Greece to discuss the impact of Europe about
governance quality in EU Member States and asks if the new European elections find both Greece and
Brussels more prepared to deal with corruption. The conclusion is that EU driven reforms in Greece remain
scattered, fragmented, not locally “owned” or driven by any group whose interest good governance would
serve. Meanwhile, the groups opposing change are well articulated. Greece’s genuine good governance
congregation has yet to coalesce, and the 2019 European and legislative elections are a good opportunity,
especially if civil society would not allow parties to instrumentalize anticorruption but engage them to
promise the still missing good governance reforms during electoral campaign and then monitor them.
Multi-Nationals and Corruption Systems: The Case of Siemens
Scholars tend to agree and evidence has shown that domestic businesses adapt to the local type of corruption, but little is known whether large multinational corporations also adapt to the local forms of corruption. Institutionalist theories of corruption and of international political economy would suggest that this would be the case, but the hypothesis has not, to our knowledge, been systematically tested. This paper, drawing on investigative materials about the activities of one such multinational, the German corporation Siemens AG, examines how it used corruption and bribery to advance its business around the world. We extrapolate from the logic of four “syndromes of corruption”, as Michael Johnston terms them, to develop specific hypotheses about the kind of behavior multinational corporations would be expected to exhibit when doing business in each of the four kinds of syndromes. We examine and compare Siemens’ activities in the United States, Italy, Russia and China. We find that Siemens did adapt to the local corruption form (or “syndrome”) and used, among others, different types of intermediaries to approach the local elites. The evidence from these case studies supports the institutionalist argument that multinationals distinguish between corrupt environments and further supports the argument that there exist different types, or syndromes, of corruption.
Multi-Nationals and Corruption Systems: The Case of Siemens
Scholars tend to agree and evidence has shown that domestic businesses adapt to the local type of corruption, but little is known whether large multinational corporations also adapt to the local forms of corruption. Institutionalist theories of corruption and of international political economy would suggest that this would be the case, but the hypothesis has not, to our knowledge, been systematically tested. This paper, drawing on investigative materials about the activities of one such multinational, the German corporation Siemens AG, examines how it used corruption and bribery to advance its business around the world. We extrapolate from the logic of four “syndromes of corruption”, as Michael Johnston terms them, to develop specific hypotheses about the kind of behavior multinational corporations would be expected to exhibit when doing business in each of the four kinds of syndromes. We examine and compare Siemens’ activities in the United States, Italy, Russia and China. We find that Siemens did adapt to the local corruption form (or “syndrome”) and used, among others, different types of intermediaries to approach the local elites. The evidence from these case studies supports the institutionalist argument that multinationals distinguish between corrupt environments and further supports the argument that there exist different types, or syndromes, of corruption.
Corruption at the business-politics intersection in the city of Monza, Italy
In 2012 a new law in the matter of transparency and anti-corruption was approved in Italy. The law has set within new frames the understanding of corruption mechanisms, as well as the definition of core concepts of the anti-corruption discourse, such as ‘prevention’ and ‘transparency’. Moreover it has also re-defined the roles and tasks of actors and employees of the public sector. In December 2013 the city of Monza, Northern Italy, was hit by the biggest corruption scandal of its history. Investigations evidenced the existence of a well run system of corruptive practices between the public sector and the City Council, which were aimed at favouring certain companies for public works and calls for tenders.
The recent events that occurred in Monza acquired even more relevance in light of the principles contained in the new legislation, particularly its stress on anti-corruption discourses (and rhetoric), as well as on the practical and performative role of virtues and ethical values in the public office.
This paper looks at how employees of Monza City Council perceived and (re)signified corruption as a whole consequent to the 2013 scandal and to the introduction of the new law, not only considering their impact at a local level, but also in a wider perspective in relation to corruption perception and practices at a national level.
Transcrime
Transcrime is the Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano and the Università degli Studi di Trento. The center, directed by Ernesto Ugo Savona, professor of criminology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, has offices in Milan and Trento and has a staff of more than 20 people, made up of academic researchers, contract researchers, Ph.D. candidates, interns and administrative personnel. Transcrime is exclusively funded by contracts and funding from private corporations and local, national and international public institutions.
Transcrime employs an integrated approach (criminology, law, economics, statistics, sociology, forensic accounting) and performs applied research to:
- Analysis of criminal phenomena (organised crime, economic crime, money laundering, illegal markets, urban crime);
- Evaluation of crime prevention policies;
- Analysis and identification of criminogenic opportunities in legislation (crime proofing analysis);
- Development of risk assessment models and crime prevention strategies for public (e.g. law enforcement, public entities) and private actors (e.g. banks, professionals, companies).
Since its establishment, Transcrime has carried out more than 100 research projects. Most of these studies have been funded by national authorities, as well as European and international institutions. To enhance the implementation of its research projects, Transcrime together with Università Cattolica will soon give life to the academic spin-off Crime&Tech. It will be the point of contact between the needs of the business world and the long-standing experience of Transcrime in the field of criminological research.
Transcrime is a key supporting body of the education activities provided by the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano. In particular, the center coordinates: the Master’s degree in Security Policy (Poli.Si)within the framework of the Master’s program in Political and Social Sciencies and the International Ph.D. in Criminology
Moreover, Transcrime provides high level training courses concerning various topics (anti-money-laundering, risk-assessment, crime statistic, etc.). These courses target professionals of the public sector (e.g. law enforcement agencies, officials, public authorities) and of the private sector (professionals of security and compliance, bank and company experts in anti-money-laundering).
Institutional performance and social values in Italy
The following report is based on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, as a part of the ANTICORRP project, Work Package 4 – The Ethnography of Corruption. In particular, it deals with the results of a survey conducted in Italy on a small sample, divided in two groups: inhabitants of the cities of Monza (Northern Italy) and Lecce (Southern Italy). The results will be presented as a whole, although we are aware of the fact that neither of the two cities can be considered as representative of the very regionally diverse Italian reality. As a consequence of that, differences at a macroscopic level will be pointed out, in an attempt to take into account relevant issues that have arisen.
The aim of the survey is to collect information on how different areas of the public and private life are perceived by the respondents, and in particular: public institutions, local development, local customs, and values. The main focus of the questions is to investigate how people deal with the problem of corruption (if perceived at all), its effects, practices, social and cultural norms, as well as with the anti-corruption discourse, both at a local and national level. It is important to stress that the word “corruption” itself is not directly used in the survey, with one exception in section D, where it is used to address one of a series of hypothetical scenarios. Avoiding direct references to corruption as a phenomenon was a choice based on the awareness that corruption itself is hard to define and to frame, since it consists of multiple practices not always perceived as fraudulent or illegal, which are not necessarily fitting the social understanding of object corruption. Using a word that has such strong moral and social implications in the public discourse would have possibly influenced the results of the survey, and make the respondent feel at unease or bias their responses when dealing with such matters.
The survey target has been the ordinary residents in the above mentioned cities, in an attempt to give a bottom-up perspective of the relationship between the citizen and the institutions at multiple levels (from local to nations and supranational), as well as to underline how the citizens relate to such institutions in matter of social trust and ability to interact with them.
The survey is aimed at providing comparable data among the countries it has been conducted in, in the scope of the WP4 research. Therefore it serves a double purpose: attempting a comparison within two different areas in Italy, as well as providing information which could be used in a wider, comparative framework.
Comparative country reports on institutional performance Countries: Bosnia, Kosovo, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Tanzania, Turkey.
The report draws on ethnographic research undertaken in 8 countries object of investigation by the WP partners, namely: Italy, Hungary, Bosnia, Russia, Turkey, Kosovo, Tanzania and Mexico. In addition, an additional chapter (Annex 2) will render the case of Japan which will serve as a contrast case on which to assess ideas and practices of governance and institutional performance through an anthropological perspective. The report includes data gathered through a questionnaire survey undertaken, with minor differences, in all the eight countries included in WP4. The data analyzed comparatively refer to three main fields: perceived and experienced performance of local institutions, local problem and resolution ideas, socio- cultural norms and values. We have identified, following the anthropological literature, a number of cultural issues that are in relation with corruption, or with local citizens’ experiences of the functioning of public institutions in their countries. This first deliverable constitutes an attempt to draw some preliminary conclusions on the interaction between socio- cultural features and governance (both as experienced and perceived) which will be further and ethnographically explored in the final deliverable of this Working Package.