**Abstract**

Based on empirical research focused on the phenomenon of corruption in Italy. The purpose of the contribution is to show the different models that are made of corruption pacts according to the actors who regulate them. The basis of the judicial documents was provided by the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (DNAA), the Court of Auditors, and a sample of Courts of Appeal from different jurisdictional districts. The information collected offers an account of the influence that the various mafias have on public policies and the ability to circumvent current legislation. The contribution underlines the existing interpretative limits and why they do not explain to what extent great and small corruption are related.

**Keywords:** corruption, mafia, policy-making, crony capitalism, maladministration

### **1. Introduction**

Corruption represents a social problem, a public evil, which unites all the countries of the world, albeit with different proportions and manifestations.1 It is a karst river which, unlike contemporary climatic trends, is not eroded by pollution but expands, and as the attention of the *media* fluctuates, the moral impact of public opinion wavers, affected by the clamor connected with some scandal or case of a political nature.

Although the issue of corruption is addressed from different perspectives and areas (such as law, sociology, political and social sciences, etc*.*), due to its multifaceted character, the awareness is that no discipline can alone provide a complete definition of the phenomenon, let alone contain it or prevent it except through synergistic cooperation. Furthermore, the nature of this phenomenon, based on a *pactum sceleris* which must remain hidden, allows it to grow and operate in a silent and submerged manner.

There are many aspects related to corruption that remain obscure, and these are not limited to the mere actual number of acts of corruption committed. The phenomenon, in fact, is essentially "invisible", as it occurs under the radar, whilst requiring

<sup>1</sup> The contribution is the result of a joint research and reflection of the authors who drafted the introduction and conclusions together. The par. 2; 4.1; 4.2 e 4.4. they were written by Roberta Aurilia; of par. 3 and 4.3 is responsible Giacomo Di Gennaro.

intense and secret investigations. What we know or intercept from official statistics is the result of cases ascertained, reported, or examined *ex officio* and if these emerge it is because they attract the attention of the *media*, due to intense thematic *coverage*, or because they are concentrated in sectors of the public administration, especially in services potentially subject (as in the case of healthcare during the pandemic) to significant judicial investigations. It is no coincidence that even these only intercept striking facts connected to intertwined entrepreneurial events or mafia-type organized crime, or linked to political figures or professional, administrative networks identified and framed as they violate the direct interests of third parties, besides clearly breaking the law and the prescribed duties, thus subverting the public interest.

Anyhow, corruption is not identified only with major corruption: the evident forms of the so-called visible or emerged corruption in its macro-systemic version (*grand corruption*) are contrasted by the micro-systemic dimension (*petty corruption*) that affects all aspects of everyday life; that invisible corruption which manifests itself when antisocial behaviors prevail over civic duty and ethical-institutional responsibility, feeding particularisms and the system of favors, while undermining the impartiality of bureaucratic-administrative action.

The economic and political costs of this *modus agendi* inevitably affect every aspect of the socio-economic-cultural life of the country. Such a system, which moves between the loose meshes of the law, favors the infiltration of criminal organizations. The actions of "Mafiacorruzione", which is the intertwining between the mafia and the market (*latu sensu* understood), represent not only a serious problem of public order but also a factor that strongly affects the economy of countries, subtracting economic availability and correct allocation of resources from the community, services, public works and investments. Therefore, the common goal of every institution, both national and international, is to counter the corruption phenomenon through differently extended, oriented, and calibrated strategies and public policies.

In Italy, the "emergency" season that characterizes the reform interventions on corruption, starting from Law n. 190 of 6 November 2012, strongly influenced in 2015 by Law n. 69 and, most recently, amended by so-called "Spazza-corrotti" Law n. 3/2019, cannot yet be said to be over. The reform of corruption crimes never seems to be ready to work "at full capacity", even though the numerous gaps in the 2012 reform have been filled over the years. Wanting to draw up a preliminary balance [1], it seems clear that the path taken in the field of anticorruption, reflecting current trends in the Italian criminal system with continuous tightening of sanctions on the one hand, as in the law named "Spazzacorrotti" [2], and the so-called "legislative nomorrhea"2 on the other, is not very effective in the fight against this phenomenon considering that Italy is still under special surveillance by European institutions due to its connotation as a "highly corrupt country".3 More in line with the objective is the trend promoted by the National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC) involving various stakeholders, aimed at developing preventive actions and policies that act "upstream" of the problem and not just repressive actions that come into play "downstream"

<sup>2</sup> That is, the tendency to adopt new reforms for raising institutional quality which, however, are substantially unsuitable for modifying a certain *modus agendi* and which, rather than containing the phenomenon, have the opposite effect of providing fertile ground for corrupting plots.

<sup>3</sup> See the 2019 Report from Transparency International. Although, in fact, there has been a slight improvement in the world ranking, at European level Italy is the sixth most corrupt state since, even today, there is talk of organized crime dominating from North to South and of the "White Collar Mafia" who prefers the use of corruption.

*Corruption and Policy-Making: How Corruption Models Favor Mafias – The Case Study of Italy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107835*

when the phenomenon has already occurred. However, the fight against corruption, a phenomenon intrinsically multidimensional, cannot be achieved through instruments revolving around exclusive punishment and sanctioning, but must be carried out, on the one hand, through a more widespread cure of civic conscience, and on the other, by means of greater transparency and better organization of the public administration. Indeed, despite the action of the ANAC and the intense professed simplification, legislative interventions are moving in the opposite direction. Although formally these are all based on prevention and have transparency and simplification as their basic philosophy, since 2014 the problems have remained unchanged as, in substance, these regulatory interventions have not affected the underlying mechanisms that guarantee the production of corruptive agreements.

Some aspects represent the *fil rouge* in the study of the corruption phenomenon: is there a relationship between corruption and *policy-making*, and what is it? This point is linked to the persistently debated problem of the tools for measuring corruption to reduce the gap between actual and perceived corruption. The frontier in measurement techniques is represented by a multiangular approach that combines micro and macro data on corruption, in a two-faceted perspective, both preventive and repressive. In this sense, the centrality assumed by ANAC needs to be highlighted, also with reference to the selection and promotion of methodologies for analyzing and measuring the phenomenon, in line with the tasks entrusted to this agency of implementing prevention policies [3]. A further aspect concerns the so-called "Geography of corruption", with the phenomenon of the so-called "Mafias in motion" posing the question about the possibility of identifying a greater concentration of corruption in the South rather than in the North. That is, whether the phenomenon of the delocalization of mafias operating in new nontraditional geographical contexts impacts corrupt circles in a different way. Finally, another point of the debate revolves around the question of whether, following the SARS-CoV2 virus epidemic and the financial instruments made available by the European Commission, we might expect an increase in the strategic use of corruption by the various criminal organizations and *lobbies*, to intercept large sums of money. The problem is that alongside the economic need to restart, there is a risk that these funds will be diverted or misallocated due to the infiltration of organized crime into the legal economy through the alliance with the so-called "gray area" of society.

These aspects will be the subject of this contribution whose intent, moreover, is also to outline—with respect to the interpretations of the phenomenon present in the literature—a different explanation that reconciles micro and macro dimensions, or the reasons underlying both great and small corruption.

#### **2. The relationship between corruption and policy-making**

Except for a few rare cases, the analysis of public policies has only recently shown interest in the system that is created between dishonesty and collusion of politicians, administrators, and private participants in *policy-making*. Illegal or even illicit behavior and corruption have only to a marginal extent been considered as essential variables in the planning and evaluation of public policies aimed at preventing and combating the phenomenon [4, 5]. This is especially true for corruption, which although considered on paper a factor of deviance and disturbance with respect to the implementation of the regulatory program, is treated as a marginal constant or as a residual or contingent explanatory factor. Indeed, when evaluating the processes and results of a public policy, the possibility of illegitimate pressures and transactions is rarely taken into consideration, and attention is focused on more visible and "controllable" aspects of the governance process. The analysis of public policies has taken on the issue of corruption and the markets of authority in weak forms, paying attention in discontinuous ways to the illicit use of influence and discretion in public administrative systems which, on the other hand, are often a great source of abuse of power and collusion. We do not know, for example, if the codes of ethics or conduct, which should include the degenerations coinciding with corruption and bad administrative behavior, effectively represent tools for guiding and controlling the behavior of public officials. Codes of ethics, in fact, define a system of moral and reputational incentives, in addition to criminal and administrative sanctions, and are aimed at increasing the ethical capital of administrations whilst guarding against "gray areas" that are not adequately regulated by contracts. These codes should foster "responsible discretion" and their proper implementation and fair application should be supported by independent bodies. In any case, their integration should be part of a more general strategy of administrative reform based on positive incentives and sanctions.

It is now clear that in *policy-making* there are opportunities and incentives to systemically break the rules through the illicit use of influence. All theories centered on *crony capitalism*, or the degenerate inextricable interweaving of business and politics that favors *rent-seeking* countries and sectors, such as those significantly dependent on political regulation (i.e., mining, oil and gas, banking, and gambling), underlined how this intertwining stifles dynamic businesses, competition and the drive for innovation whilst resulting in poor regulation, the formation of trusts, and false myths about longterm growth [6, 7]. Many corrupt situations, for example, are traced back, by the public agent, to *maladministration* (political and administrative malpractice) which is certainly associated with corruption but does not completely overlap with it, since maladministration (a sort of "cobweb legislation" that does not facilitate transparency) is very often also the result of poor work organization. That is, a bad organization is not the result of someone abusing public power for private purposes, but it is an intrinsic factor, and this disorganization offers the perfect excuse for the pursuit of self-interest.

The analysis of the relationship between corruption and policy-making cannot overlook the fundamental aspect stemming from the role of local and territorial bodies and from the services they must provide in the area of local welfare (above all health and social assistance services). The *policy-community* now revolves around a *cluster* of services that has transformed local welfare and made local administrators and politicians the main players in the diversified supply of services and redistribution of local wealth (local public services, the water sector, waste, public transport, etc.), as well as responsible for curbing public spending through compliance with the internal stability Pact. Very often the network of relationships associated with this *cluster* is transformed where corruption is widespread. Poor management of functions within the responsibility of the local authority and a nonexistent or inadequate *governance* (an aspect of which is managerial control) or consolidated *accountability* of the subjects called to manage and direct the administrative machine, exposes the body or services offered to perverse opportunities of corruption. Or at least to satisfy some exclusive categories of interests or lobbies.

Insisting on transparency and the simplification of administrative procedures is important but these alone are not sufficient as a solution to the degeneration that lobbying activities of various stakeholders produce toward the interception of public resources. The results of a research carried out in Campania in 2009 on 29 municipalities in the province of Naples and Caserta show that an important game is being played on the administrative and governance grounds of local authorities to hinder

#### *Corruption and Policy-Making: How Corruption Models Favor Mafias – The Case Study of Italy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107835*

or facilitate corrupt exchanges [8]. If the concrete activity of the public administration is not based on a separation between the levels of planning, management, and control in order to avoid what in the literature is called "*State capture*"—that condition of systemic corruption connected to bad management of old and new functions of the local authority, from the consolidation of particularisms, clientelisms and a low transparency of public action [9, 10]4 —there happens to be an underground and incisive influence of interest groups or people who end up seizing control of sectors and services by "Capturing", through bribery, the regulation and the regulator itself to the benefit of individuals or groups. When this process of enslavement of the rules, of subordination to the interests of influential circumscribed networks or people (be they private beneficiaries, external companies, or criminal groups), reaches regulations, decrees, and procedures, bending them to generate nontransparent private benefits in exchange for advantages for public officials, then it means that control and power subordinated to the private interests of individuals, groups or organizations have taken root (as in the case of waste management in Campania; or of the "tavolino"5 in the regulation of procurement contracts in the Casalesi syndicate).

An antidote, then, must be not only the efficiency of the levels indicated with the aim of averting state capture, but the "systemic complementarity between politics and bureaucracy because it permits, instead of unequivocally distinguishing, to separate the functions of direction and control from those of management, inducing each one to carry out their own role with clarity, competence, professionalism and above all responsibility for one's actions" [8]. Furthermore, all the organizational components, including the political one, must rest their foundations on solid *accountability* systems, understood as "*the duty to give an account of one's work by a subject towards another subject in order to define responsibly and credibly the existing relationships between planning - decision - action – control*" [8], that is to give adequate account of one's actions as a moral and social obligation towards the various *stakeholders* to generate trust, institutional credibility and build consensus on a continuous evaluation of the positive *outcomes* actually produced to meet the interests of the community. If all this is not affirmed as an operational and cultural principle, the likelihood that corruption will continue to spread remains very high.

Only recently have data on the interactions between corruption and public policies come to the attention of *policy analysis*. This lack of attention has not prevented much information from being presented in studies carried out on corruption itself and not from those on policy formulation and implementation. Failure to integrate these variables, the role of corruption and illicit behavior in the formulation and implementation of public policies, risks making the possibility of designing policies capable of dealing with the spread of the collusive phenomenon between corruption and mafias ineffective. Nevertheless, it must be reiterated, corruption is not linked to the exclusive presence of the mafias, because there is direct corruption governed by the mafias, but there is corruption independent of the leading role of the mafias. This implies that factors originating corruption are also independent of the pressure and interests of the mafias.

<sup>4</sup> When private organizations, lobbies, restricted networks of businessmen, private actors create corrupt exchanges or collude with public officials or politicians to obtain a mutual private benefit, a "capture of the state" occurs, in the sense that the various powers are subject to the pursuit of private interests. Many authors interpret modern corruption precisely as a consequence of managerial degenerations related to procurement, to the management of local public services, to the cultivation of bad practices.

<sup>5</sup> This is an illegal form of pact guaranteed by the syndicate whereby procurement contracts are only given to firms chosen periodically from a certain set.

The Councilor of State Pajno has repeatedly stressed that without a strong civic spirit (and here the reference is to article 11 of Legislative Decree n. 33/2013) it is difficult for transparency to take root. He also added that the fight against administrative corruption must be based on a more systemic approach by lawmakers to the issue of transparency which includes incentives and sanctions, indicates timings in the implementation of a reform process and does not transform the reformed institutions of transparency (for example, the obligations of drafting-publication of both general and specific information) in "an increase in that 'opacity due to confusion' which is typical of the excess of forecasts and information", the paradox of which would come about because rather than a reorganization of the provisions on transparency obligations aimed at generating simplification, there would be a "publicity system which, being based on a meticulous series of related obligations, creates a real regulatory inflation, thus increasing the complication rate of the legal system" [11].

To date, it is possible to state that the "ethical question", which is the plethora of problems linked to the deviation from legal and moral standards of market players (whether they are public officials, politicians or administrators, and their social interlocutors), having great resonance in the agendas of various governments, represents a strategic node for public and private organizations. Therefore, in all democratic countries, there is the development of anticorruption strategies and policies to limit the negative impact of collusive, criminal or illegal practices on economies and institutions, which damage the state economy and inevitably increase popular distrust of public action and the integrity of the system [4].

## **3. Models of corruption**

Awareness of the multifaceted and systemic nature of the corruption phenomenon has led Italian lawmakers to prepare not only repressive but also preventive instruments, not only of a criminal but also of an administrative nature, in the knowledge that legal instruments can only be truly effective if they tackle the problem upstream before the seeds of corruption take root in the social *humus*. In terms of the prevention and repression of corruption, as a result of the thrust of international conventions aimed at combating this phenomenon, as suggested by the various international organizations involved in the fight against corruption, the path has been undertaken based on a necessary integrated strategy aimed not only at repression but above all at prevention, hindering the problem in the bud, thus avoiding facing it only at the pathological moment, or when an offense has already been committed but at the physiological moment, *ante* corruptive agreement.

Italian laws, which are too detailed, unclear and poorly coordinated with each other, often lead to a mere bureaucratic fulfillment of the legislation that inevitably lacks effectiveness; therefore, it is necessary to promote a culture open to transparency, simplification, information and collaboration in a synergistic way between citizens, public officials, entrepreneurs, governmental and nongovernmental institutions to combat the complex corruption phenomenon. However, to do this, it is necessary to consider the impossibility of analyzing and studying the phenomenon without considering the various ways in which it manifests itself.

The hidden exchange, in fact, is no longer only bilateral but can take different forms, especially that of the cartel. Furthermore, corruption increasingly assumes a systemic form, that is, it reaches such a level of diffusion that the guarantee of success is given by the unitary agreement. The so-called socialization of connivance, among

*Corruption and Policy-Making: How Corruption Models Favor Mafias – The Case Study of Italy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107835*

many people whose reputation is not undermined by leveraging the *cliché* of "everyone does this" which is concretized in the so-called social circle of recognition where the identity of the participant is built on the mutual strengthening of a sense of solidarity and mandatory responsibility towards existing ties and coverage obligations [12].

The moral faculty to deceive the state comes from the norm of moral recognition shared within the circle. Corruption is systemic because it is not only "organized", or because does not only belong to a specific group, or has a criminal group as its protagonist, but because it is based on a plurality of "government centers", fixers, facilitators, officials, professional politicians and other players, who "ensure the stability of equilibria that have taken root over time, with respect to which any reform runs the risk of turning into nothing, due to strategies of adaptation, avoidance and learning of the protagonists" [13].

Furthermore, the illicit pact can see the setting up of real "business committees" made up of professionals, public officials or politicians, and administrative agents. This organization shows the ability to direct the interactions between the variety of players involved (public and private) towards increasingly new opportunities for illicit gain in different fields of public intervention [14].

Taking into consideration what has been said with respect to the forms of corruption, it is possible to hypothesize distinct relational types and regulatory mechanisms which, based on their combination, generate the profile of the exchange by configuring the relationship. By way of example, without claiming to be exhaustive, it is possible to identify: (a) the condition corresponding to the presence of one or more political subjects directly supported by and colluding with a criminal organization; (b) the condition corresponding to the presence of one or more officials/ bureaucrats of the public administration directly colluding or affiliated with the criminal organization; (c) the condition corresponding to the presence of one or more entrepreneurial subjects active as referents of the criminal organization; (d) the condition corresponding to the presence of criminal organizations that produces and regulates the corruption pact also through agreements between groups operating in different territorial articulations; (e) the condition corresponding to the presence of active entrepreneurs who bribe officials and criminal organizations that intercept or ask for the collection of untitled amounts of money as a commission for subsequent procurements. This typification is useful to understand if the *modus operandi* is different in relation to elements such as the type of organization, the territory where the opportunity falls, the sector in which the opportunity is created, the condition that determines the opportunity and whether the criminal organization is a player, promoter or regulator, if all the actors (PA, business owner, and third parties) are present in the exchange or if the relationship is direct between the criminal organization and the PA, or if it is configured in a given way regardless of the presence or co-presence of one or more factors [15]. This analysis is not insignificant, as it helps to study the *modus agendi* of criminal organizations and therefore contributes to not only contrasting but above all preventing mafia infiltration into the PA and the legal economy.

#### **4. The case of Italy**

#### **4.1 Estimated size of the corruption phenomenon: Perception indices**

The phenomenon of corruption in Italy is constantly growing and its presence permeates all areas of life, including daily life, so pervasively that it is accepted and tolerated by society almost as a consubstantial element with it.

#### *Corruption – New Insights*

An important contribution for the purpose of carrying out significant research activities aimed at comparing and evaluating the legislation of the various countries to provide data on the phenomenon and promote increasingly suitable law enforcement and transparency measures and increasingly efficient controls, is that provided by governmental and nongovernmental international organizations. Among nongovernmental organizations, of particular importance is the contribution offered by *Trasparency International* which publishes studies, global and regional annual reports, and a global barometer on corruption. Their *Source Book* on the fight against corruption is also of great interest. Through the latter, in fact, a new methodological investigation tool was developed based on the concept of "National Integrity" aimed at analyzing all the sectors that affect the socioeconomic life of the country and the relationships between them. The results that emerge depict a reality in which the high rate of corruption affecting political life, society, the economy and the culture, combined with the total or partial absence of transparency and integrity of the institutions (represented by a heterogeneous range of areas of public and private life), leads to a worsening of the general system. Due to the dynamics of intersection between the various sectors, anti-corruption reforms should be at the macro-systemic level of a general and all-encompassing nature and then become specialists in nature once they have passed on to the micro-systemic level.

In *Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2021* [16], which reports the assessments of international observers on the level of corruption in 180 countries

**Figure 1.** *Transparency International, Corruption Perception Index 2021.*

*Corruption and Policy-Making: How Corruption Models Favor Mafias – The Case Study of Italy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107835*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Trend in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 2012 to 2021.*

around the world, Italy recorded a perceived corruption index in the public sector of 56 (on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is maximum transparency) holding the 42nd position (**Figure 1**).

Over a period that goes from 2012 to 2021, Italy, despite having arrested its disastrous descent in the ranking, nevertheless remains behind the Western states in terms of position and perceived level of corruption in the public sector compared to other countries in the index. In fact, to date, its score of 56 (despite the trend of slight but constant improvement recorded over the years, with 14 points gained since 2012) remains above the world average (42); nevertheless, this figure is still significantly lower than the European average of 66 (**Figure 2**).

The corruption phenomenon is not only difficult to define but, due to its pervasiveness, it is even more difficult to measure given the huge number of manifestations of this phenomenon which cannot be counted in the judicial quota. The modern mechanisms for measuring corruption, which use data and tools from the experiences of the various States, permit, though with the awareness of a margin of imprecision of the results achieved, to analyze the phenomenon of emerged corruption dynamics to then discover the submerged ones too. A decreasing number of cases of criminally prosecuted and convicted corruption is contrasted by an increase in the perception of this phenomenon at a macro and micro systemic level. The result of this mismatch is, of course, a strengthened expectation of impunity of the subjects involved in the corruption mechanism and, as a counterpart, the growth of mistrust towards the judiciary involving a decrease in police reports which, too often, are resolved in inconclusive manner.

However, the perception of the phenomenon on a collective level tends to strengthen around the so-called gray areas of administrative activity in which "friendships, acquaintances and help" prevail over the rights and duties enshrined in the Constitution and in the laws or regulations of the sector.

In 2019, Eurispes<sup>6</sup> conducted research based on the "econometrics" of corruption in Italy. This study focuses on the relationship between the real size of the corruption phenomenon and its representation, and how the value attributed to this relationship can alter the reputation of a country.7 In fact, labeling a country as corrupt or more

<sup>6</sup> Eurispes, Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies is a private entity that has been operating in the field of political, economic and social research since 1982.

<sup>7</sup> This research, curated by G.T. Polcini for Eurispes, has set itself the goal of verifying the validity of the opinion expressed towards Italy by the most common perceptual indicators at global level.

corrupt than it really is, can have effects on the economy. For this reason, to control, prevent and counter the corruption phenomenon, it is necessary to represent it in its various aspects having a multiform nature. According to the World Bank, corruption is the main obstacle to the economic and social development of countries. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) itself, based on the above-mentioned *Corruption Perception Index* developed by *Transparency International*, wanted to study the consequences of the corruption phenomenon on the economy. A low index, that is, closer to the value indicating a high degree of corruption, corresponds to lower attractiveness for investments, lower reliability, higher interest rates, damage to image and reputation.

Within the OECD, Italy is the country with the highest perceived corruption, even though trust in institutions is much higher than in other countries where, on the other hand, little or almost no trust in institutions corresponds to a much lower perception of corruption. The same happens in international indices, where Italy ranks much lower than it would as a democratic country and one of the top 10 countries in the world by per-capita GDP.8 The mismatch between the actual existence of the corruption phenomenon and its perception can be seen in the comparison between data from the latest ranking of *Transparency International* highlighting a high degree of perception of the corruption phenomenon and the results of a sample survey carried out by Eurispes which depict a very different reality regarding the actual existence of the phenomenon, in line with other developed nations.

Given the full autonomy of the ANAC, to effectively combat the corruption phenomenon, both preventive and repressive measures are taken. This intervention, however, generates a distorting effect that has been defined as the so-called "Trocadero paradox": the more corruption phenomena are pursued in terms of prevention and repression, the greater the perception of the phenomenon. Therefore, a legal system like the Italian one, which is sensitive to the fight against corruption, is more affected by this distorting effect. To carry out an analysis of this type and avoid the mistake of comparing completely inhomogeneous systems, it is necessary to use homogeneous measurement indices of an objective and subjective nature. Therefore, to be able to use data at a European and international level, it is necessary to redefine the indicators used up to now in favor of a single composite indicator. Indeed, the real problem that emerges from this research is that of the poor reliability of perception indices as these, in fact, measure the impression one has of this phenomenon, but not the phenomenon itself. This statement is serious, and even more so when keeping in mind that the corruption rate of a nation affects not only the credibility of its institutions, both internally and externally, but above all the economic aspect.
