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Political Parties and Corruption: Reflections on the Italian Case1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Donatella della Porta
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Extract

Political corruption can be considered as a means by which money influences politics. In the classic studies the causes of corruption have usually been identified in the characteristics of the principal actor in the political system: the party. Samuel Huntington, in particular, has linked the development of corruption to party weakness during phases of growing political participation. Corruption spreads in those specific paths to modernization in which popular participation in political decision-making is not immediately accompanied by a strengthening of those institutions, such as political parties, which should filter and direct collective demands: ‘the weaker and less accepted the political parties, the greater the likelihood of corruption’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , 1995 , pp. 97 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

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