Jean-Louis Briquet

Scholarly formulations of a political category: Clientelism and the sociohistorical interpretation of the ‘Italian case’

This article reflects on the reasons why clientelism has reached its status as a determining category in the scholarly interpretation of the Italian political system. By returning to the earliest formulations of the concept (in the controversies of the late nineteenth century on the widening of suffrage) and then its successive recreations up to the political crisis of the 1990s (as a typical manifestation of the political ‘anomalies’ of an ‘incomplete’ democracy), it relates this centrality to the uses made of the denunciation of clientelism in political and institutional struggles and the way political science has developed in Italy as an academic discipline.

Introduction: Violence, Crime, and Political Power

“The globalization of crime,” the rise in power of “world mafias,” the proliferation of large transnational crime networks behind increasingly extensive and lucrative smuggling operations (narcotics trafficking, arms dealing, illegal raw materials trade, counterfeit goods, extortion of migrant workers, etc.): on the basis of these alarming reports, organized crime was presented as one of the main threats to the economic and political world order during the 1990s. Many observers expressed concern, widely picked up by the media, that a new “mafia empire” had arisen, corrupting markets and government institutions, and undermining the material and moral foundations of liberal democracies.1 A growing number of experts, magistrates, senior police and military officials, political leaders, journalists, and academics alerted the public to this threat that was expanding in the shadow of globalization and the “retreat of the state.”2 International organizations attempted to prevent and combat organized crime more diligently than in the past. Promoting interstate judicial and police cooperation, they have encouraged governments to enact special legislation against it (in particular by establishing the specific crime of membership in a criminal organization) and to reinforce the institutional apparatus required for combating it (intelligence and specialized crime units, procedures for monitoring financial flows, development of undercover investigation techniques).3 This intense mobilization led to the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in December 2000 in Palermo.