This book investigates the hidden order of corruption, looking at the invisible codes and mechanisms that govern and stabilize the links between corrupters and corruptees. When corruption is exposed, unknown aspects are revealed which allow us to better understand its structures and informal norms. This book is theoretically informed and based on empirically sound research on a central challenge for democratic quality and as such presents an important study of corruption in democratic countries.

Donatella della Porta is Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute. Among her recent publications are: Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (with Michael Keating), Cambridge University Press; Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits (with Gianni Piazza), Berghan, 2008; The Global Justice Movement, Paradigm, 2007; (with Massimiliano Andretta, Lorenzo Mosca and Herbert Reiter), Globalization from Below, The University of Minnesota Press; (with Abby Peterson and Herbert Reiter), The Policing of Transnational Protest, Ashgate 2006; (with Manuela Caiani), Quale Europa? Europeizzazione, identità e conflitti (Il Mulino, 2006); (with Mario Diani), Social Movements: an introduction, 2nd edition, Blackwell, 2006; (with Sidney Tarrow), Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Alberto Vannucci is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pisa. Among his publication on corruption Corrupt Exchange (New York, 1999, with D. della Porta), Unclean Hands (Rome 2007, with D. della Porta). Other publications: The spectre of competitiveness: the Institutional Roots of the Italian Decline (Rubbettino 2006 with R. Cubeddu); The Governance of Uncertainty: Public Choice and Institutional Change (Soveria Mannelli 2004). He has collaborated with the Italian Parliamentary Committee for the Prevention of Corruption.

Contents: The hidden order of corruption: an introduction; The governance structures of corrupt exchanges; Corruption as a normative system; Bureaucratic corruption; Political actors in the governance of corrupt exchanges; The entrepreneurial management of corrupt exchanges; Brokers in corruption networks: the role of middlemen; Organized crime and corruption: mafias as enforcers in the market for corrupt exchange; Snowball effects: how corruption may become endemic; Conclusion: anticorruption policy and the disarticulation of governance structures in corrupt exchanges; Bibliography; Index.