Italy Silvio Berlusconi Research Paper

In the case of money, it is corruption. Some would argue that money is the root of all problems, and that there is no instance where money doesn’t cause corruption. This threat is constant in the media today: the election, the celebrities, the news. These and many more are considered corrupted by a source of great wealth, being that the cantaditas pay for votes, the celebrities are paid for their acting in the media, and the news stations are paid by different political parties to represent them in broadcasts. Sadly, as this does occur, many people are represented for their money and not for their talent due to the overvaluing of money in America. It is most definitely true that corruption does occur as a result of money, but not to a complete extent. While these instances do occur in today’s world, there is reform in action as well as the fact that not all Americans are led towards this path of deception. It is true that many people are drawn towards money when it comes to picking a leader or immersing oneself in the media, there are many cases of Americans going towards those who exemplify ideals similar to their own over those who have larger supplies of wealth. This paves the way to the realization that not all Americans overvalue

During the Second World War, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was the leader of the Italian Nationalist Fascist government. He was head of the Italian government from 1922 till 1943. The significance of Mussolini is that he played a key role acting as the Italian Prime Minister and established a totalitarian regime, during this time, as the unchallenged supreme leader, known as ‘Il Duce’. Fascism consisted of many contributors of which Mussolini with all his quirks was the key to most of its failures and successes, making him the most significant player that is worthy of being investigated. This topic is worthy of being investigated as Mussolini made a lot of decisions that lead to the death of many, but the question as to

Corruption can come from many different people. When the same group of people are always in government it becomes a situation where this group of people runs government. And when someone wants to be elected they might do whatever the group of people wants to be in there favor. The Federalist paper number 68 it says “He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessarily to the duration of his official consequence” (Hamilton). There are also people from foreign countries that want to be the leader of America just for the benefit of their home country. They

There are few nation-states that one could point to as being truly “corruption-free” (Denmark hosts the most corruption-free gov’t according to Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index). However, this is a trait that holds back the growth of the whole of society, weakening the disadvantaged and emboldening the powerful. As Transparency International goes on to state:

In Italy at that time, nothing was entirely stable, and rulers where always changing, and the government was never standing firm

Geographically, Italy is comprised of a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, as well as two large islands. The shape of Italy has been depicted as a ‘boot’ in many cartoons and drawings for years. The country covers over 116,000 square miles, making it approximately the combined size of Florida and Georgia. (Killinger, 2002) Italy is a democratic republic that has a current population of around 60 million people, making it the twenty-third most populous country in the world. Italy

In fact, politicians gained electoral consensus thanks to the “mafiosi” (members of the mafia community), meanwhile bosses obtained more state protection, political and economic power. This system benefited the few bosses that played their followers as cards in their game, establishing in their mind important values such as fraternity, loyalty, respect the apex and following directions. This is a valuable example of inequality: the top hierarchies take control of the lower classes by influencing the political system and silently controlling the economic one, often spreading fear and death to its opponents. A well-known example of repression to different ideologies is the assassination of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, both judges and prosecuting magistrates, occurred on May 23rd 1992, the day after Borsellino was proclaimed head of the Public Prosecution Office of Palermo. The crime was planned because these two figures were discovering illicit affairs and therefore knew too many information that connected organised crime to the politics. Although these two brave politicians tried in vane to make a change, not all legislators act in such way. This is the case of the recent scandal of "Mafia Capitale", Rome's organized crime activities from the beginning of the 2000's, which brought to light the organized criminal conspiracies that the Romans mayor Gianni Alemanno was involved in. This is just to make explicit that illegality is on daily basis in Italy, and even if it is not directly shown, it is still

Italy over the years has established itself as one of the most developed and powerful countries in all of Europe. Although this all may be true, it has not seen a great deal of recovery after the debt crisis that affected all of Europe and is falling behind in terms of globalization. After World War II, Italy had an economic miracle fueled by the Marshall Plan that allowed its economy to flourish. This huge growth was later stagnated and then in 2008, Italy was hit with a recession that it has had a hard time recovering from. This slow recovery is making Italy an outsider in the view of Europe, and Italy has seen this slow recovery from the recession because of low growth, low productivity, corruption, and a split between the north and the

It seems like the only sector of Italy that has thrived is its underground black market. These lucrative and subversive activities account for over 25 percent of the country’s GDP. This puts a burden on the Italian government since all this lost revenue is not subject to taxation. Italy’s chief of state, or president is Giorgio Napolitano, who has served since May 15, 2006. Napolitano’s main responsibilities are to approve the Council of Ministers and to provide the prime minister with advice. Berlusconi leads the Forza Italia, a Christian-democratic, liberal majority political party in Italy. Forza Italia was founded in December 1993 and was merged into The People of Freedom March 2009.

It would be convenient to start this research paper by stating that corruption is a challenge mainly for businesses in developing countries and that it is unrelated to the current affliction of the economy in the United States. It would also be convenient to claim corruption has declined in America as a result of awareness raising campaigns and the numerous anti-corruption laws. But none of those aforementioned statements would be true. Corruption is not the exception, but rather the rule in today’s business practices. In 2004, Daniel Kaufmann, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former director at the World Bank, calculated an index of "legally corrupt" manifestations which is defined as the extent of undue influence

Italy has been shaped by its history of constant warring and many rulers, which in turn has made Italians doubtful toward authority as well as giving them a strong ability to survive difficult situations (Welcome to Italy).

Speaking about criminality, it is necessary to say about Italian mafia. Based on the report of 2009 year, commissioned by Italy's parliamentary anti-mafia commission, it is possible to say that now it is silently prospering, moving on from spectacular crimes and massacres to business and politics, with a prudent dose of intimidation and violence in a bid to take over the fundamental role of the state. The highest concentration of people living under the shadow of the mafia, 95.9%, was in the province of Agrigento in Sicily, followed by Naples, at 95%. (Tom Kington, guardian.co.uk, 2009).

He, as the owner of Italy’s 3 major television stations and largest publishing house, has been able tovirtually dominate the meida and thereby, marginalize any criticism of his government. The ethics of occupying a dual role in business & ethics is somewhat questionable. On one hand, one could argue that it has certain advantagesif politicians have had the experience of the business world and vice versa. On the other hand, there are also quite significant ethical problems linked to the close amalgamation of business and politics. Eg. German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was criticized for taking up an appointment as Chair of the Germa-Russian company, in charge of the new gas pipeling through the Baltic Sea. This deal was negotiated in th final months of his term in office. It makes obvious the problems that can arise when we have politcians who are entitled to set the rules of the economic game also acting as players in the game.

Political corruption has existed throughout the ages. It believed to be most prominent in positions of power, because of the role money plays in getting people power. However, over the centuries, corruption has changed so much so as to not match a particular definition of corruption, perpetually growing deceptively harder to find (Ebbe).

Corruption is a complex political, social, and economic anomaly that negatively affects developing and developed countries. It weakens democratic institutions, holds economic development, widening the rich-poor gap and certainly leads to governmental instability. The World Bank definition of corruption states that “…the abuse of public office for private gain”.