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Journal articles on the topic 'Political corruption – Italy'
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1
Guarnieri, Carlo, Cristina Dallara, and Michele Sapignoli. "Political corruption in Italy." Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais 20, no. 3 (November 13, 2020): 324–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2020.3.37879.
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At least since the 1990s, corruption has continued to be listed as one of the major shortcomings affecting old and new European democracies. In spite of that, measuring political corruption is still a tricky task. In this scenario, some recent studies proposed to turn the attention to the judicial actions to curb corruption, through criminal prosecution, shedding light specifically on the investigations involving high-level politicians (Popova and Post 2018; Dallara 2019). In this paper we aim to present data about judicial prosecution of political corruption in Italy, emphasizing how the number of investigations involving political actors seems rather high, although relatively few cases end with a conviction. Moreover, we aim to suggest some explanatory factors that could account for this situation. Among them: the salience of the issue in the political and public debate; the governance structure of the Italian judicial system and some characters of the Italian criminal law and procedure.
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Della Porta, Donatella, and Alberto Vannucci. "Controlling political corruption in Italy." Res Publica 38, no. 2 (June 1996): 353–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.5553/rp/048647001996038002353.
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Hine, David. "“Political corruption in Italy,” political corruption in Europe and Latin America." Trends in Organized Crime 2, no. 4 (June 1997): 64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12117-997-1090-3.
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Nelken, David. "The Judges and Political Corruption in Italy." Journal of Law and Society 23, no. 1 (March 1996): 95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1410469.
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Della Porta, Donatella, and Alberto Vannucci. "Corruption and anti-corruption: The political defeat of ‘Clean Hands’ in Italy." West European Politics 30, no. 4 (September 2007): 830–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402380701500322.
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Briquet, Jean Lpuis. "Questione morale e crisi di regime. La prima Repubblica italiana alla prova degli scandali (1992-1994)." MEMORIA E RICERCA, no. 32 (December 2009): 27–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/mer2009-032003.
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- According to the standard thesis, the political crisis in Italy between 1992 and 1994 and the collapse of the Christian Democrat regime are related to the revelation of corruption of the political elite by the judiciary. However, judicial revelations and corruption scandals have regularly occurred in Italy, before and after this crisis, without provoking a drastic political change and the reject of the political system by the electorate. Considering this paradox, the article suggests an alternate account of the 1992-1994 events that underline the way in which the political competition had been affected by the scandals: the moral crusades against corruption had in this period a political impact because they had been relayed and supported by emerging political actors in order to challenge the established elites and to claim a leading role in reshaping the political system.
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Vannucci, Alberto. "Systemic corruption and disorganized anticorruption in Italy." Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais 20, no. 3 (November 13, 2020): 408–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2020.3.37877.
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TThis paper provides, trough different indicators, empirical evidence on the presumably high relevance of corruption in Italian politics and administration, providing an explanation of how this “obscure” side of Italian politics – a pervasive market for corrupt exchanges – has found its way to regulate its hidden activities within an informal institutional framework, i.e. systemic corruption. A general theoretical framework for the analysis of limits and “windows of opportunity” in Italian anticorruption policies will then be provided, crossing the degree of salience and politicization of corruption issue to explain how in different periods such variables shaped such policy arena. Finally, it will be shown how occasionally this dark side of Italian politics clashed with the clean side of politics, focusing on the reasons of the weak political accountability of Italian politicians involved in corruption scandals in the last decades.
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PORTA, DONATELLA DELLA. "A judges' revolution? Political corruption and the judiciary in Italy." European Journal of Political Research 39, no. 1 (January 2001): 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.00567.
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Alberti, Adriana. "Political corruption and the role of public prosecutors in Italy." Crime, Law and Social Change 24, no. 4 (December 1995): 273–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01298351.
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Newell, James L. "Corruption-mitigating Policies: The Case of Italy." Modern Italy 10, no. 2 (November 2005): 163–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13532940500284192.
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SummaryOne of the circumstances likely to be associated with the intensity of both investigative and legislative efforts designed to curb political and bureaucratic corruption is institutional reform. Since the characteristics of electoral and party systems seem to be associated with variations in the intensity of anti-corruption efforts cross-nationally, it was reasonable to think that changes in the characteristics of these systems in Italy in the 1990s would be reflected in a corresponding change in the efforts of legislators and members of the judiciary to tackle corruption. Prior to the 1990s Italy's tripolar party system and its numerous concomitants placed considerable obstacles in the way of the willingness and the ability of judicial investigators and parliamentarians to deal with the corruption emergency. The 1993 electoral law reform, the eventual emergence of a largely bipolar party system and the circumstances surrounding these processes considerably diminished the significance of the aforementioned obstacles, yet there has been little noticeable increase in anti-corruption efforts. This is probably explicable in terms of the electoral effects of such efforts and suggests that institutional change is at most only one of a number of conditions that must be fulfilled in order for more strenuous efforts to be observed.
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Borlini, Leonardo. "Not such a Retrospective: On the Implementation of the International Anti-Corruption Obligations in Italy." International Criminal Law Review 21, no. 4 (May 31, 2021): 784–808. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718123-bja10067.
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Abstract The past thirty years have seen unprecedented international initiatives aimed at combatting corrupt practices. The net effect of such initiatives is that today there exists a sort of “hyper norm” repudiating corruption that transcends national boundaries. Over the same period, Italy has ratified and implemented within its legal system five international anti-corruption treaties, and amended its domestic legislation on different occasions. However, despite considerable efforts, corruption remains a serious challenge in the country. This article examines the main achievements and shortcomings of the implementation of the aforementioned conventions in Italy in light of the outcomes of the monitoring procedures established by the same treaties.
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Ginsborg, Paul. "Italian Political Culture in Historical Perspective." Modern Italy 1, no. 1 (1995): 3–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13532949508454754.
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Much more so than in the recent past, the eyes of Europe and even of the world are on Italy. This attention does not derive from any innovative solutions that Italy may have offered to the grave problems which today face modern states: those of environmental pollution, of unemployment, of racism, of declining political legitimacy. Rather, Italy has attracted intense scrutiny for two principal reasons. First, because certain courageous magistrates, both in Palermo and Milan, have waged an unprecedented and dramatic war against criminal organizations and political corruption, and this in one of the most corrupt democracies in Europe. Their lead has been taken up in France and Spain, and their actions studied by colleagues as far away as Japan and Argentina. Unexpectedly, the Italian state has produced and allowed space for a group of public servants who have earned admiration on a global scale.
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Piattoni, Simona, and Matteo Fabio Nels Giglioli. "Does Changing Electoral Systems Affect (Corrupt) Particularistic Exchanges? Evidence from the Italian Case." Politics and Governance 8, no. 2 (May 28, 2020): 78–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/pag.v8i2.2913.
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The literature on forms of particularism explores the impact of institutional variables on what is denoted, alternatively, as constituency service, pork-barrel politics, or corruption. Attention has mostly been given to electoral systems, but other institutional provisions and political factors, such as party strength, are also relevant. The present contribution investigates the likely effects of electoral reforms on corruption control and seeks confirmation of the hypothesis that single member plurality (even within mixed member) systems are conducive to a type of particularism that might help fight corruption, taking Italy as a case. We test the impact of two electoral reforms and three electoral systems enacted in Italy between 1996 and 2016, whose primary aim was bolstering enfeebled party leaderships and facilitating the formation of durable governments, and we compare the effort at corruption control of the Italian governments born under these different electoral systems with those of other European democracies.
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Ceron, Andrea, and Marco Mainenti. "When rotten apples spoil the ballot: The conditional effect of corruption charges on parties’ vote shares." International Political Science Review 39, no. 2 (November 23, 2016): 242–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192512116668858.
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The impact of corruption charges on the electoral performance of parties is conditioned by specific institutional factors. This article shows the extent to which the effects of political corruption depend on the control that party leaders exercise over the ballot. It is argued that voters might abstain or support other lists if they cannot select individual candidates to revitalize the reputation of the political party. Employing data on judicial investigations in Italy from 1983 to 2013, we provide evidence of the role of electoral rules and intra-party xcandidate selection in shaping the relationship between corruption and voters’ behaviour. Parties implicated in corruption or related crimes experience a loss of votes when they compete under a closed list formula or when the candidate selection process is strongly centralized.
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Asquer, Raffaele, Miriam A. Golden, and Brian T. Hamel. "Corruption, Party Leaders, and Candidate Selection: Evidence from Italy." Legislative Studies Quarterly 45, no. 2 (December 18, 2019): 291–325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12259.
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De Rose, Claudio. "Corruption in Public Procurement: How to Fight and Prevent it?" Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice 31, no. 1 (April 1, 2013): 93–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/251569213x15664519748587.
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Abstract Corruption and public procurement often go together, at least in Italy. Corruption must be continuously fought and it is also necessary to find appropriate ways for preventing it. However, this is not easily achieved, because of the wide-ranging features of corruption, the variety of its causes and the sensitivity of the issue, including at political level and in particular where public procurement is concerned. This type of corruption has its own specific characteristics, stemming from the specificities of public procurement such as: the need for direct interaction between public officials and the private sector at every stage, from die award up to the execution of the contracts; the complexity of the legal and technical regulations on public procurement; the difficulties related to financing and thus also to payments. In all these aspects, public procurement can create opportunities for corruption, not only for sporadic, individual corruption but also for systemic corruption, which affects public administration and society as a whole, and involves organised crime to a steadily increasing extent. Since a long time, national, European and international bodies and institutions, as well as legal doctrine, have been looking into appropriate solutions to corruption in public procurement, giving also useful advice to lawmakers. In Italy, since 2012, such a reflection has led to the adoption of new legislative measures, which have recently culminated in the setting up of the Italian Anti-Corruption Authority.
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Shabbir, Ghulam, and Mumtaz Anwar. "Determinants of Corruption in Developing Countries." Pakistan Development Review 46, no. 4II (December 1, 2007): 751–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.30541/v46i4iipp.751-764.
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Corruption is a limp in the walk of human progress. It is not a new phenomenon; it is as old as the history of mankind itself. The corruption made itself visible when the institution of the government was established. According to Glynn, et al. (1997), “…..no region, and hardly any country, has been immune from corruption”. Like a cancer, it strikes almost all parts of the society and destroys the functioning of vital organs, means cultural, political and economic structure of society Amundsen (1999). All this was proved by the major corruption scandals of France, Italy, Japan, Philippine, South Korea, Mexico, United States etc. These scandals bring the corruption problem on the agenda of major international institutions like International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, Transparency International and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
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Rossetti, Carlo. "The Prosecution of Political Corruption: France, Italy and the USA - A Comparative View." Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 13, no. 2 (July 2000): 169–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713670512.
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Golden, Miriam A., and Eric C. C. Chang. "Competitive Corruption: Factional Conflict and Political Malfeasance in Postwar Italian Christian Democracy." World Politics 53, no. 4 (July 2001): 588–622. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wp.2001.0015.
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This article studies the relationship between cartels of politicians and systemic political corruption in a democratic setting. Some electoral systems, including open-list systems of proportional representation, encourage intraparty competition for office. The authors analyze the relationship between intraparty conflict in postwar Italy's dominant political party, the Christian Democrats, and charges of malfeasance against Christian Democratic members of the Chamber ofDeputies in the years between thefirstpostwar parliamentary elections of 1948 and the end of the XI legislature in 1994, when the electoral system was substantially modified. Suspected malfeasance is operationalized as requests by the judiciary to lift parliamentary immunity in order to proceed with an investigation of a member of the Chamber of Deputies.Results show a significant statistical relationship between intraparty conflict and alleged corruption on the part of DC deputies starting in the early 1970s. These results are interpreted to mean that the dramatic levels of political corruption observed in Italy in recent decades were in part an outgrowth of the search for campaign funds by incumbent DC members of parliament in competition with other candidates from the same party. Electoral competition with other parties did not significantly affect the extent of charges of malfeasance against DC deputies. Using maps, the authors also provide preliminary evidence that Italian corruption did not spread from south to north in a process of cultural contagion, as is commonly believed. Instead, theyfind,the determinants of corruption appear to be endogenous to institutions of the postwar political system.
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Rhodes, Martin. "Financing party politics in Italy: A case of systemic corruption." West European Politics 20, no. 1 (January 1997): 54–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402389708425175.
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CURINI, LUIGI. "Negative Campaigning in No-Cabinet Alternation Systems: Ideological Closeness and Blames of Corruption in Italy and Japan Using Party Manifesto Data." Japanese Journal of Political Science 12, no. 3 (November 2, 2011): 399–420. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1468109911000181.
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AbstractWithin a one-dimensional spatial framework, we deduce that parties’ incentives ‘to go negative’, by blaming alleged insufficiencies of the rival concerning commonly shared values, increase with their ideological proximity. We test our hypothesis by considering the long period of no-cabinet alternation that characterized both Italy and Japan. In particular, we focus on the (spatial) incentives of the Italian Communist Party and of the Japanese Socialist Party to emphasize on a particular topic related to negative campaigning, i.e. political corruption issues. The status of the perennial opposition held by both parties, together with the existence of several political corruption scandals during the period considered, makes the Italian and the Japanese political systems particularly apt to test our hypothesis. The results, based on data derived from electoral programs, support our theoretical insights.
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Lanoue, Guy. "Wartime Nostalgia in Italy: Validating the Fatherland." Fascism 8, no. 1 (July 1, 2019): 89–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22116257-00801005.
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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Italy experienced a series of crises when its precarious postwar political compromise was challenged by the effects of decades of structural corruption. The author was offered unsolicited narratives of the prewar and especially wartime Fascist period. Surprisingly, many of these stories cast Fascists and their Nazi political allies in a positive light. Here, the author argues that these favourable views of a bleak period are linked to the disenchantment and diffidence many felt (and continue to feel) toward the state and its institutions, and that these stories are not nostalgic expressions of fascist sympathies. Instead, they stress how people managed the micro-details of everyday life to gain small, individual victories against wartime degradations that would otherwise transform them into powerless victims. Even today, these expressions of individual agency reinforce shared notions that there is alternative to the institutional culture of an inefficient and oppressive state.
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Mancini, Paolo, Marco Mazzoni, Alessio Cornia, and Rita Marchetti. "Representations of Corruption in the British, French, and Italian Press." International Journal of Press/Politics 22, no. 1 (November 11, 2016): 67–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940161216674652.
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As part of a larger European Union (EU)-funded project, this paper investigates the coverage of corruption and related topics in three European democracies: France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Based on Freedom House data, these countries are characterized by different levels of press freedom. A large corpus of newspaper articles (107,248 articles) from the period 2004 to 2013 were analyzed using dedicated software. We demonstrate that freedom of press is not the only dimension that affects the ability to and the way in which news media report on corruption. Because of its political partisanship, the Italian press tends to emphasize and dramatize corruption cases involving domestic public administrators and, in particular, politicians. The British coverage is affected mainly by market factors, and the press pays more attention to cases occurring abroad and in sport. The French coverage shares specific features with both the British and the Italian coverage: Newspapers mainly focus on corruption involving business companies and foreign actors, but they also cover cases involving domestic politicians. Media market segmentation, political parallelism, and media instrumentalization determine different representations preventing the establishment of unanimously shared indignation.
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Del Monte, Alfredo, and Erasmo Papagni. "Public expenditure, corruption, and economic growth: the case of Italy." European Journal of Political Economy 17, no. 1 (March 2001): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0176-2680(00)00025-2.
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Zatti, Andrea. "Accountability, anti-corruption, and transparency policies in Public owned enterprises (POEs): The case of Italy." ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, no. 1 (February 2022): 43–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/ep2022-001004.
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The paper depicts, in the Italian case, the interconnections between two themes: bribery and anti-corruption policies, on the one hand, and the role of public controlled entities, on the other. Italy turns out to be an interesting case study because, on the one hand, it is among the worst performing countries in the G7 and the EU members in terms of corruption and, on the other, it has experienced a strongly proliferation of Public owned enterprises (POEs) during the last two or three decades, involving nearly all activity sec-tors of the economy. This process is deemed to have weakened the chain of control on shared units, delegating relevant financial and political decisions to a milieu of ambiguity and uncertain accountability (the ‘escape' argument). A progressive change of direction occurred more recently, when corporatized public enterprises have been submitted to specific and increasing limits, including transparency and anti-corruption policies. The anticorruption package, adopted in Italy starting with 2012, has promoted important steps in this direction, yet the effects of these new measures have not been resolutive, and many challenges are still open.
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Richey, Sean, and J. Benjamin Taylor. "Google Books Ngrams and Political Science: Two Validity Tests for a Novel Data Source." PS: Political Science & Politics 53, no. 1 (October 24, 2019): 72–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096519001318.
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ABSTRACTGoogle Books Ngrams data are freely available and contain billions of words used in tens of millions of digitized books, which begin in the 1500s for some languages. We explore the benefits and pitfalls of these data by showing examples from comparative and American politics. Specifically, we show how usage of the phrase “political corruption” in Italian, French, German, and Hebrew books strongly correlates with Transparency International’s well-cited Corruption Index for France, Italy, German, and Israel. We also use Ngrams to show that the explosive growth in usage of the phrases “Asian American,” “Latino,” and “Hispanic” correlates with real-world changes in these populations after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. These applications show that Ngram data correlate strongly with similar data from well-respected sources. This suggests that Ngrams has content validity and can be used as a proxy measure for previously difficult-to-research phenomena and questions.
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Berti, Carlo. "Rotten Apples or Rotten System? Media Framing of Political Corruption in New Zealand and Italy." Journalism Studies 20, no. 11 (October 3, 2018): 1580–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2018.1530068.
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Dalia, Gaspare. "Prevenzione e percezione di fenomeni corruttivi: istanze di difesa sociale e crisi del garantismo processuale penale." Optime 13, no. 2 (February 6, 2022): 3–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.55312/op.v13i2.373.
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Constitutions and the International Charters of Rights are concerned to ensure the judicial verification of the unlawfulness of facts in compliance with the inalienable rights of the person and the presumption of innocence. Today, modern criminal procedural law, which has always been conditioned by different legal traditions, by different political-constitutional approaches and by the current "criminal emergencies", suffers further stress resulting from political and media communication on topics such as organized crime, terrorism and corruption, thus diverting the analysis from objective data and basing the discussion on questionable and instrumental evaluations. In this context, the demands of justice do not coincide with those of legality, but with those of social defense. In Italy, the disproportionate increase in anti-corruption measures has profoundly changed the procedural means of their assessment, with a clear danger for the rights of suspects and/or accused persons and with a consequent dangerous inquisitorial drift. At the international level, however, new and better measures are being tested. The long-term goal is to identify objective criteria in order to measure corruption in each country, using real-time data. Only objective indicators will make it possibleto conduct investigations that "measure" the corruption in countries in order to initiate more incisive actions to combat it.
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Zhang, Nan. "Changing a ‘culture’ of corruption: Evidence from an economic experiment in Italy." Rationality and Society 27, no. 4 (September 28, 2015): 387–413. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1043463115605475.
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Rabinovich, Irina. "Hawthorne’s Rome – A city of evil, political and religious corruption and violence." Ars Aeterna 9, no. 1 (June 27, 2017): 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/aa-2017-0001.
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Abstract Hawthorne’s Rome is the home of dark and evil catacombs. It is a city haunted by evil spirits from the past that actively shape the romance’s plot. Rome’s dark gardens, endless staircases, hidden corners and vast catacombs, as well as the malodorous Jewish ghetto, affect Donatello’s and Miriam’s judgment, almost forcing them to get rid of the Model, Miriam’s persecutor. Hawthorne’s narrator’s shockingly violent, harsh and seemingly anti-Semitic description of the ghetto in Rome is just one among many similarly ruthless, and at times offensive, accounts of the city wherein Hawthorne situates his last completed romance, The Marble Faun. Hawthorne’s two-year stay in Rome in 1858-59 sets the scene for his conception of The Marble Faun. In addition to providing Hawthorne with the extensive contact with art and artists that undoubtedly affected the choice of his protagonists (Kenyon, a sculptor; Hilda and Miriam, painters), Italy exposed Hawthorne to Jewish traditions and history, as well as to the life of Jews in the Roman ghetto. Most probably it also aroused his interest in some of the political affairs in which Italian Jews were involved in the 1840s and 50s. This historical background, especially the well-publicized abduction and conversion of a Jewish child, Edgardo Mortara, in 1858 provides important political and cultural background for Hawthorne’s portrayal of Miriam in The Marble Faun.
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Coşkun, Gülçın Balamır. "Does Corruption End the Dominant Party System? A Comparative Analysis of the Italian and Turkish Cases." European Review 25, no. 2 (December 19, 2016): 320–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798716000612.
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This article argues that the effects of high-level corruption scandals on the future of a dominant party depend on the existence of a rule of law system based on the separation of powers. The article will study two examples from a comparative perspective to concretise its theoretical claims: the Christian Democracy Party in Italy, which was the dominant party from 1948 to 1992, and the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. The comparison will be based on an institutionalist perspective. The first part tries to provide a theoretical clarification of the concepts of predominant party systems and corruption. The second part discusses whether the Turkish and Italian party systems can be classified as predominant and the characteristics of these systems. The final section seeks to draw out similarities and differences between these two systems and the effects corruption has on them.
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Garcia, Leice Maria, and Armindo dos Santos de Sousa Teodósio. "Análise de limites dos sistemas de contabilidade e controle para o enfretamento do problema da corrupção sistêmica no Brasil: lições dos casos da Suécia e da Itália." Revista de Administração Pública 54, no. 1 (January 2020): 79–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220180115.
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Abstract This article seeks to understand the reasons for the persistence of corruption in the Brazilian federal government, despite strong public accounting and financial control systems in the country. More than two-thirds of the states in the world, including Brazil, face the challenge of plundering public finances by political, economic, and bureaucratic elites. In this context, the exclusive use of the dominant approach of economic theories for the structuring of public control systems is limited. It is more appropriate to consider corruption as a problem of collective action. Hence, the theoretical reference chosen includes Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Tocqueville’s and Ostrom’s collective action theories, as they have been understood respectively by Mungiu-Pippidi and Rothstein. The methodological strategy adopted is an exploratory analysis of the cases of contemporary day Brazil, based on the lessons learned from nineteenth-century Sweden, and Italy in the 1990s. The results indicated that overcoming systemic corruption requires more than control systems. It demands, at least, a trigger to disrupt the perverse social imbalance, institutional capacity to offer normative effectiveness and a cohesive and active civil society.
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Garcia, Leice Maria, and Armindo dos Santos de Sousa Teodósio. "Limits of Brazilian public accounting and control systems to address the systemic corruption problem: lessons from the Swedish and Italian cases." Revista de Administração Pública 54, no. 1 (January 2020): 79–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220180115x.
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Abstract This article seeks to understand the reasons for the persistence of corruption in the Brazilian federal government, despite strong public accounting and financial control systems in the country. More than two-thirds of the states in the world, including Brazil, face the challenge of plundering public finances by political, economic, and bureaucratic elites. In this context, the exclusive use of the dominant approach of economic theories for the structuring of public control systems is limited. It is more appropriate to consider corruption as a problem of collective action. Hence, the theoretical reference chosen includes Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Tocqueville’s and Ostrom’s collective action theories, as they have been understood respectively by Mungiu-Pippidi and Rothstein. The methodological strategy adopted is an exploratory analysis of the cases of contemporary day Brazil, based on the lessons learned from nineteenth-century Sweden, and Italy in the 1990s. The results indicated that overcoming systemic corruption requires more than control systems. It demands, at least, a trigger to disrupt the perverse social imbalance, institutional capacity to offer normative effectiveness and a cohesive and active civil society.
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Lorencka, Małgorzata. "Ordynacja wyborcza do włoskiej Izby Deputowanych z 4 sierpnia 1993 roku." Polityka i Społeczeństwo 19, no. 4 (2021): 94–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.15584/polispol.2021.4.7.
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The political instability of Italian governments, excessive fragmentation and party polarization, political corruption characterized Italy's political system from the unification of the state in the second half of the nineteenth century. Successive amendments to the parliamentary election law were an attempt to solve the above problems. Such a process also took place in 1993. The aim of this article is to present the legal provisions of the electoral law to the Chamber of Deputies in Italy of August 4th, 1993. The shape of the changes introduced, the mixed election formula and the original method of distributing seats (scorporo totale and scorporo pro quota) were an example of searching for new solutions in electoral engineering on the way to finding the perfect electoral law. The article uses mainly legal-dogmatic and legal-institutional methods.
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Acconcia, Antonio, Giancarlo Corsetti, and Saverio Simonelli. "Mafia and Public Spending: Evidence on the Fiscal Multiplier from a Quasi-Experiment." American Economic Review 104, no. 7 (July 1, 2014): 2185–209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.7.2185.
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A law issued to combat political corruption and Mafia infiltration of city councils in Italy has resulted in episodes of large, unanticipated, temporary contractions in local public spending. Using these episodes as instruments, we estimate the output multiplier of spending cuts at provincial level—controlling for national monetary and fiscal policy, and holding the tax burden of local residents constant—to be 1.5. Assuming that lagged spending is exogenous to current output brings the estimate of the overall multiplier up to 1.9. These results suggest that local spending adjustment may be quite consequential for local activity. (JEL D72, E62, H71, K42)
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Clemens, Clay. "A Few Bad Apples or a Spoiled Barrel? The CDU Party Finance Scandal Five Years Later." German Politics and Society 23, no. 2 (June 1, 2005): 72–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/104503005780880731.
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It was the biggest political scandal in postwar German history. As revelation followed revelation in late 1999, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party finance (Parteifinanz) affair tarnished careers, most notably those of former chancellor Helmut Kohl and, separately, his longtime heir apparent Wolfgang Schäuble. When both fell, their party gained a new cadre of leaders. Most analysts expected the fallout ultimately to spread much further, fatally crippling the CDU and perhaps destroying it altogether. Voices could be heard to the effect that this scandal was on the same scale as one that rocked Italy a decade earlier, when the "Clean Hands" investigation unearthed massive evidence of bribery and corruption.
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Gagliarducci, Stefano, and Marco Manacorda. "Politics in the Family: Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 12, no. 2 (April 1, 2020): 67–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/app.20170778.
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This paper studies the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals’ labor market outcomes. Using data for Italy spanning more than three decades on a sample of almost one million individuals plus data on the universe of individuals holding political office, we show that politicians extract significant rents, in terms of private sector jobs, for their family members. We present evidence consistent with the hypothesis that this phenomenon is a form of corruption, i.e., a quid pro quo exchange between firms and politicians, although arguably an inferior substitute for easier-to-detect modes of rent appropriation on the part of politicians. (JEL D72, D73, J23, K42, M51, Z13)
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Douglas, Christopher. "“Bodies and Things, Both Putrid and Corrupt”: Miasma and Racial Anxiety in Hawthorne's The Marble Faun." Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 47, no. 1 (May 1, 2021): 101–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/nathhawtrevi.47.1.0101.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract As the forces of racial anxiety and pandemic combined in America in 2020 in the BLM protests and COVID-19 outbreak, so too they combine in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun (1860) in the form of antebellum racism and malaria. Written shortly after his European tour, Hawthorne's final novel, which is packed with comments about the poisonous Roman air, features New England artists Hilda and Kenyon who must navigate Italy without becoming degraded, while Italians Miriam and Donatello belong to the corruption that Italy breeds. The pestilence oozing between the lines of this novel is born out of racial transgressions; though different in scope from America's enslavement of Africans, the tension between white, Protestant American culture and Catholic Italy speaks to the same neuroses haunting the American psyche of not only the 1850s but also the twenty-first century. The American characters' separation from the Roman atmosphere mirrors the growing separation between North and South during the runup to the Civil War. Like America, Italy was on the verge of war, although as a force of unification instead of dissolution; yet for both, Hawthorne subverts the open discussion of any political tension to the level of a diseased atmosphere.
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Capone, Francesca, and Marco Longobardo. "Introduction." International Criminal Law Review 21, no. 4 (May 3, 2021): 617–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718123-bja10056.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract The predicted expansion of international law ultimately resulted in the imposition on States of several and far reaching obligations to criminalise certain offences, in order to, inter alia, uniform States’ criminal law framework to the maximum extent possible. The aim of the special issue is to provide a forum to discuss the many and multifaceted aspects connected to obligations of domestic criminalisation, using Italy as a case study. The special issue is divided in three sections, addressing, respectively, broad issues of general application, Italy’s implementation of obligations to criminalise conducts amounting to international crimes, and further ambits of analysis (i.e. gender based violence, cyber crimes against minors and corruption).
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Guido, Melis. "Il potere dei giudici e la latitanza della politica." PASSATO E PRESENTE, no. 85 (February 2012): 5–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/pass2012-085001.
Full textAbstract:
The power of judges and the default of politics. Since 1861 the High Court of Magistrates has been part of the top level of the Italian state. It was the task of the Court to turn into jurisprudence the great bourgeois laws, when Italy was still rural and old regime. However the judges held power: internally, as the High Court ruled judicial careers; and externally, because judges protected their privileges. Fascism restricted the liberty of judges, but at the same time allowed them to retain their power of control of careers. In the post-war Republic, the judges discovered the newborn Constitution only in the 1950s and started to defend it. In more recent times, the judges have taken a leading role in the three "emergencies": against terrorism, mafia, and corruption. In all three of these situations they have acted as proxies, given the lack of accountability of politicians.
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Dogan, Mattei. "Erosion of Confidence in Thirty European Democracies." Comparative Sociology 4, no. 1-2 (2005): 11–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1569133054621932.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe deficit of confidence is attested by a wealth of empirical data. The analysis deals with some nine institutions, political parties, discredit of politicians, the tandem of judges and journalists in denouncing the wrongdoings, the decreasing mistrust between nations as a compensatory trend of mistrust within nations. The countries are ranked according to the level of mistrust, which permeates all social strata. Corruption is an ubiquitous phenomenon in Europe, with few exceptions. Two illustrative emblematic cases are compared; Britain and Italy. In spite of the widespread feeling of mistrust, the legitimacy of democracy remains unchallenged. What types of citizens are needed in advanced democracies? Ignorant, credulous, believers in myths or well informed rationally distrustful citizens? Today democracy is permanently under the supervision of the public, as attested by surveys conducted periodically.
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Scolobig, Anna. "Understanding Institutional Deadlocks in Disaster Risk Reduction: The Financial and Legal Risk Root Causes in Genova, Italy." Journal of Extreme Events 04, no. 02 (June 2017): 1750010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s2345737617500105.
Full textAbstract:
Many countries, regions and towns around the world experience lack of action or delayed actions in the implementation of disaster risk reduction measures. One of the common causal explanations is the insufficient funding available to reduce risk, especially at the local level. However, so far few studies have provided an in-depth analysis of the root causes of these deadlocks in disaster risk reduction. This paper analyses risk root causes in Genova, a town situated in North West Italy and exposed to high impact weather events. The town has experienced an increase in the intensity of flood events in the past 50 years, causing casualties, evacuations, displacements and severe damage. Decisions about flood risk mitigation progressively became a highly contested issue, especially because of the delays in reinforcing the banks of the Bisagno river and the city’s flood defences. The causes of these delays are not to be found in the lack of technical solutions, but rather in the socio-political and institutional dynamics. The Risk Root Cause Analysis (RRCA) framework provided the theoretical and methodological background to identify the key root causes of the risk reduction deadlock: corruption accusations and legal conflicts, unfair criteria for funding allocation at the regional level, lack of coordination among funding agencies, side effects of austerity measures, mismatches between the political and disaster risk cycles. The results show that the strengthening of a certain system — e.g., anti-corruption measures to avoid bribery in public spending — may cause the weakening of another one — e.g., delays in protection works execution — and generate increased risk exposure and vulnerability. Another similar example regards the implementation of national austerity policies, which caused human resources’ constraints at the local level and shifts of public funding from the disaster risk reduction to other sectors such as health. Anticipation of these and other unintended side effects discussed in the paper as well as a better understanding of the root causes of the deadlocks in risk reduction, can contribute to the improvement of disaster management strategies.
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Marra, Mita. "Le minacce tecnocratiche e centralistiche alla spending review e le sfide politiche della valutazione in Italia." RIV Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione, no. 53 (October 2013): 47–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/riv2012-053005.
Full textAbstract:
In Italy, the recently launched spending review process seems the only alternative to budgetary cutbacks centrally applied across the board. Fighting waste and corruption while making administrative agencies more effcient and accountable to citizens is a key priority for local and regional governments as well. Yet, current spending reviews are conducted on aggregated broad-based appropriations of public spending and are, then, unable to generate that "usable" knowledge, which regional and local policy makers and managers can rely on for policy design and implementation. Indeed, a centralistic and technocratic modus operandi, heavily relying on civil service downsizing, risks undermining spending review effectiveness as public oversight tool, and reinforcing coercive isomorphism at the expense of political legitimacy and cultural acceptance of administrative performance assessments. This paper addresses such questions as on how a democratic "would-be federal" state operates and to what extent consolidation of public finances can be reckoned as an overriding goal against efficiency and accountability considerations at the local level. Three issues emerge are key to reform: (i) what human resources public administration should invest on to adequately govern localities as well as regions; (ii) what measures are effective to fight waste and corruption; and (iii) what reliability and plausibility current performance measurement have with respect to actual public services offered to citizens.
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Molnár, Anna, and Anna Urbanovics. "The role of e-democracy in Italy and Hungary." Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy 14, no. 3 (April 22, 2020): 545–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/tg-01-2020-0010.
Full textAbstract:
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the mechanisms behind the development of e-democracy. The contrasting cases of Italy and Hungary are selected as the case studies. With the development of new information and communication technology, more and more elements of domestic politics have been transferred to the internet-based platforms. As a response to the deep financial, economic and political crisis that Europe endured over the period 2010-2015 and as a result of the disappointment with traditional parties, new political movements and parties were created. In this paper, the Italian Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Hungarian Lehet Más a Politika (“Politics Can Be Different”) and Momentum are examined to trace the specific mechanisms that led to their establishment. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on mixed method approach, using primary and secondary data to identify and examine mechanisms conducive to the emergence of e-democracy. It uses quantitative analysis along with discourse analysis and social media analysis. The research is based on the analysis of respective parties’ social media communication. The social media analysis has been carried out by the SentiOne social listening software within the time frame of February 2018 and the end of 2019. Along different types of democracy measurements, Italy and Hungary have been analysed between 2017 and 2019. Findings The paper identifies the key preconditions for the emergence of e-democracy. These are freedom, gender gap, inequality and corruption. It also then elaborates on mechanisms, such as social media activity and citizen engagement, which lead to the emergence of e-democracy. The thesis of this article is that in Hungary (compared to Italy), elements of high-quality standards for a democracy are still missing to establish a successful political party which uses the sustainable concept for e-democracy. In Hungary, the examined parties use social media only as media representation without exploiting the possibilities lying in social media platforms. They mostly rely on these networking sites during elections and no strong sentiments can be identified in their communication. Italy is a more developed democracy where online platforms are used to engage citizens regularly. M5S actively communicates through these platforms, which is reflected in the amount of comments and strong social media activity even out of election period. Originality/value The originality of the paper is the social media analysis to test the use of social media in the parties’ political communication. The paper defines key factors and mechanisms concerning the establishment of e-democracy through inductive analysis of two contrasting cases. Italy and Hungary are two member states of the European Union (EU) with different development, their current preparation and situation regarding e-democracy give insights on how the quality of democracy determines their attitude towards cyber parties. While Italy being a founding member of the EU has become an established democracy, Hungary, after the transition, has developed into a new democracy.
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DOGAN, MATTEI. "Dissatisfaction and mistrust in West European democracies." European Review 10, no. 1 (February 2002): 91–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s106279870200008x.
Full textAbstract:
An important proportion of citizens do not manifest confidence in many basic institutions (parliaments, parties, unions, army, public bureaucracies, big business, courts, ecclesiastic hierarchy, police) nor in the political class. Such a deficit of trust is attested by a wealth of empirical data. Nonetheless, the legitimacy of democratic regimes is not challenged: European citizens do not conceive realistically of an alternative system of government. A new counter-power is playing an increasing and crucial role in advanced pluralist democracies – that of magistrates and journalists combined. France and Italy are considered as typical cases, concerning in particular corruption at the highest level of the State and society. What types of citizens are needed in advanced democracies? Ignorant, naive, deferential, credulous, believers in myths or well informed, rationally distrustful citizens? Today, democracy is permanently under the supervision of the public, as attested by surveys conducted periodically.
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Maher, Brigid. "Foreign settings in the Fascist-era giallo: Italian writers’ creative explorations of criminality and cultural difference." Modern Italy 25, no. 2 (April 8, 2020): 163–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/mit.2019.75.
Full textAbstract:
The 1930s saw an explosion in the publication of crime writing in Italy, but initially readers’ appetite for crime fiction was fed almost entirely by translated imports from the US, Britain and France. Even as publishers began promoting crime writing by Italians, foreign models and settings remained important, and several early Italian writers set their work in foreign countries. This article, which draws on both textual analysis and archival research, examines some foreign-set novels produced by Italian authors during the Fascist years, and seeks to identify the function and appeal of foreign settings in the depiction of criminality in that period. These books, peopled by exotic ‘Others’, comment on corruption, freedom of the press, cultural diversity, racial difference, policing, criminality, as much at home as abroad. The distant settings offered safety and freedom, as well as escapism or distraction, and the opportunity to experiment with genre.
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Oikonomou, Giorgio. "Variations in the quality of government within the European Union: A comparative approach of Northern and Southern public bureaucracies." European Integration Studies, no. 13 (October 29, 2019): 37–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.13.24033.
Full textAbstract:
The quality of government represents a critical parameter of modern states for delivering sound public policies for the benefit of citizens. Dimensions such as accountability, impartiality, mechanisms which cope effectively with corruption and government effectiveness stand as core components of the quality of government, whereas at the same time account for much of the variation in the quality of government across European Union (EU) countries. This paper seeks to examine the quality of government by comparing and contrasting countries of the EU with substantially different administrative characteristics and traditions. The research explores two Nordic countries, namely Denmark and Sweden, and, two Mediterranean countries, Italy and Greece.
Taking stock of theoretical insights from the political and economic literature the core aim of the paper is to identify plausible explanations with regard to the variations in the quality of government across the four selected EU member-states. The research draws on quantitative data based on the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and the European Quality of Government index (EQGI). It is argued that certain traits (legacies) of the political-administrative systems of the countries under examination can explain much of the observed, often striking, variations in the quality of government between the North and the South European bureaucracies.
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Bakic, Dragan. "Nikola Pasic and the foreign policy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 1919-1926." Balcanica, no. 47 (2016): 285–316. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/balc1647285b.
Full textAbstract:
This paper looks at Nikola Pasic?s views of and contribution to the foreign policy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SCS/Yugoslavia after1929) during the latest phase of his political career, a subject that has been neglected by historians. His activities in this field are divided into two periods - during the Paris Peace Conference where he was the head of the SCS Kingdom?s delegation and after 1921 when he became Prime Minister, who also served as his own Foreign Minister. During the peace conference, Pasic held strong views on all the major problems that faced his delegation, particularly the troubled delimitation with Italy in the Adriatic. In early 1920, he alone favoured the acceptance of the so-called Lloyd George-Clemenceau ultimatum, believing that the time was working against the SCS Kingdom. The Rapallo Treaty with Italy late that year proved him right. Upon taking the reins of government, Pasic was energetic in opposing the two restoration attempts of Karl Habsburg in Hungary and persistent in trying to obtain northern parts of the still unsettled Albania. In time, his hold on foreign policy was weakening, as King Alexander asserted his influence, especially through the agency of Momcilo Nincic, Foreign Minister after January 1922. Pasic was tougher that King and Nincic in the negotiations with Mussolini for the final settlement of the status of the Adriatic town of Fiume and the parallel conclusion of the 27 January 1924 friendship treaty (the Pact of Rome). Since domestic politics absorbed much of his time and energy, the old Prime Minister was later even less visible in foreign policy. He was forced to resign in April 1926 on account of his son?s corruption scandal shortly before the final break-down of relations with Italy.
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Hossain, Arif. "Peace, Conflict and Resolution (Good vs. Evil)." Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 4, no. 1 (March 26, 2013): 9–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i1.14264.
Full textAbstract:
The immense structural inequalities of the global social /political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of state control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale. There is good and evil among mankind; thus it necessitates the conflict between the good and evil on Earth. We are in for a period of major conflicts and great upheavals. It's generally regarded that Mencius (c.371- c.289 B.C) a student of Confucianism developed his entire philosophy from two basic propositions: the first, that Man's original nature is good; and the second, that Man's original nature becomes evil when his wishes are not fulfilled. What is good and what is evil? Philosophers of all ages have thought over this question. Each reckoned that he had solved the question once and for all, yet within a few years the problem would re-emerge with new dimensions. Repeated acts of corruption and evil action makes a man corrupt and takes away a man from his original nature. Still now majority of the people of the world give compliance to corruption because of social pressures, economic pressures, cultural pressures and political pressures. The conflict between good and evil is ancient on earth and is prevalent to this day. May be the final confrontation between the descendants of Cain and Abel is at our doorsteps. During the 2nd World War America with its European allies went into world wide military campaign to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. When the Second World War ended in 1945 the United States of America came out as victorious. America was the first country to detonate atomic bomb in another country. During that period Russia fell into competition with America in politically colonizing countries after countries. With the fall of Communism Russia terminated its desire wanting to be the champion of the oppressed of the world. The situation in Russia continues to deteriorate, a country which until only a few years ago was a superpower. Russians are deeply disillusioned today with the new politicians in Russia, who they says "promise everything and give nothing." The Russians still strongly oppose a world order dominated by the United States. If anyone looks at or investigates the situations in other countries it can be seen that at present almost all countries of the world are similar or same in the forms of structures of corruption and evil. The Worldwide control of humanitys economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2012, at a conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies. Mass public protest occurred against US hegemony are mainly from Muslim countries of South East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Africa. The latest mass protests erupted in September 2012 when the divine Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was insulted by America and Israel. There were strong mass protests by people from Indonesia to Morocco and in the European countries by mostly immigrants and Australia were there are Muslim populations. This worldwide protest had occurred while the rise of the masses is ongoing against corrupt rulers in West Asia and North Africa. The masses of the people are thirsty and desperate for justice, dignity, economic welfare and human rights. Most major religions have their own sources of information on the Last Age of Mankind or the End of Times, which often include fateful battles between the forces of good and evil and cataclysmic natural disasters. Humans are evolving to a final stage of their evolution towards a 'New Age that is to come which the corrupt does not understand. At present times a final battle of good versus evil on Earth will ensue. The World powers (leaders) and their entourages who are really detached from the masses have organized to keep aloft the present world order that degenerates the masses in corruption, keeps the people in unhappiness, and deprives the masses from economic well being, education and keeps promoting wars and conflicts to support corruption and evil. We are at the ?End of Times?. The Promised Messiah will come to set right what is wrong, no doubt. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i1.14264 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2013; 4(1):9-19
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Hossain, Arif. "Peace, Conflict and Resolution (Good vs. Evil) Part 2." Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 4, no. 2 (September 9, 2013): 9–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i2.16372.
Full textAbstract:
The immense structural inequalities of the global social /political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of state control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale. There is good and evil among mankind; thus it necessitates the conflict between the good and evil on Earth. We are in for a period of major conflicts and great upheavals. It's generally regarded that Mencius (c.371-c.289 B.C) a student of Confucianism developed his entire philosophy from two basic propositions: the first, that Man's original nature is good; and the second, that Man's original nature becomes evil when his wishes are not fulfilled. What is good and what is evil? Philosophers of all ages have thought over this question. Each reckoned that he had solved the question once and for all, yet within a few years the problem would re-emerge with new dimensions. Repeated acts of corruption and evil action makes a man corrupt and takes away a man from his original nature. Still now majority of the people of the world give compliance to corruption because of social pressures, economic pressures, cultural pressures and political pressures. The conflict between good and evil is ancient on earth and is prevalent to this day. May be the final confrontation between the descendants of Cain and Abel is at our doorsteps. During the 2nd World War America with its European allies went into world wide military campaign to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. When the Second World War ended in 1945 the United States of America came out as victorious. America was the first country to detonate atomic bomb in another country. During that period Russia fell into competition with America in politically colonizing countries after countries. With the fall of Communism Russia terminated its desire wanting to be the champion of the oppressed of the world. The situation in Russia continues to deteriorate, a country which until only a few years ago was a superpower. Russians are deeply disillusioned today with the new politicians in Russia, who they says "promise everything and give nothing." The Russians still strongly oppose a world order dominated by the United States. If anyone looks at or investigates the situations in other countries it can be seen that at present almost all countries of the world are similar or same in the forms of structures of corruption and evil. The Worldwide control of humanitys economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2012, at a conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies. Mass public protest occurred against US hegemony are mainly from Muslim countries of South East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Africa. The latest mass protests erupted in September 2012 when the divine Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was insulted by America and Israel. There were strong mass protests by people from Indonesia to Morocco and in the European countries by mostly immigrants and Australia were there are Muslim populations. This worldwide protest had occurred while the rise of the masses is ongoing against corrupt rulers in West Asia and North Africa. The masses of the people are thirsty and desperate for justice, dignity, economic welfare and human rights. Most major religions have their own sources of information on the Last Age of Mankind or the End of Times, which often include fateful battles between the forces of good and evil and cataclysmic natural disasters. Humans are evolving to a final stage of their evolution towards a ?New Age that is to come which the corrupt does not understand. At present times a final battle of good versus evil on Earth will ensue. The World powers (leaders) and their entourages who are really detached from the masses have organized to keep aloft the present world order that degenerates the masses in corruption, keeps the people in unhappiness, and deprives the masses from economic well being, education and keeps promoting wars and conflicts to support corruption and evil. We are at the ?End of Times?. The Promised Messiah will come to set right what is wrong, no doubt. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i2.16372 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2013; 4(2) 9-21