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Italian Political Culture in Historical Perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2016
Extract
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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References
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