Financing party politics in Italy: A case of systemic corruption

Abstract

Party finance in Italy has been regulated by law since 1974. But the introduction of regulation did little to restrain the expansion of well established practices of financing from bribes and kickbacks. Indeed, there are good reasons to suggest that the form of regulation actually fuelled the rapid growth of corruption throughout the Italian political system in the 1970s and 1980s which led, eventually, to the collapse of the traditional parties in the early 1990s. This collapse, and the ground‐swell of popular anti‐party sentiment that accompanied it, provided an opportunity for reform, but only after a referendum banned all public subvention of parties and political campaigns. A new law on party finance introduced at the end of 1993 breaks with 20 years of tradition and public funding is now restricted to reimbursement of candidates and lists of candidates ‐ rather than parties ‐ for campaign expenditure only. Whether this will prevent the re‐emergence of widespread illicit party financing has yet to be seen.