Among Equals

Lucia Manzi is assistant professor of political science at SUNY Plattsburgh.

Introduction: The Long Failure of Corruption Prosecutions and the Mani Pulite Operation's Breakthrough Chapter 1: From Hierarchical to Egalitarian: The Root Causes of Prosecutorial Independence and Effectiveness Against Systemic Corruption Chapter 2: A More Democratic Judiciary: The Transformation of Italian Judicial and Prosecutorial Institutions Chapter 3: All Investigations Lead to Rome: The Roman Prosecutor's Office Chapter 4: A New Model of Criminal Justice: The Milan Prosecutor's Office Chapter 5: Tackling Omerta: The Prosecutors' Offices in Palermo and Reggio Calabria Conclusion: Lessons for Prosecutorial Success Against Corruption

In this extraordinary book on Italy's Mani Pulite, Manzi breaks new ground in the study of anti-corruption and judicial power. She tells a fascinating story of how institutional change, judicial and prosecutorial dexterity, and civil society mobilization converged to produce an unprecedented pro-transparency push, one with profound local, regional, and global implications. Through a clever combination of historical analysis, within case comparisons and creative fieldwork, Manzi shows that the internal design of judicial and prosecutorial bureaucracies, in particular the degree to which they are hierarchical or "flat," greatly conditions the ability of actors in the criminal legal complex to hold politicians to account. She also shows that via synergies with activists and legal scholars, judges and prosecutors can produce innovative investigative protocols and jurisprudence, thus amplifying the effects of institutional change. This book is a must read for students of judicial politics and corruption criminalization. -- Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos, University of Oxford