Analog VS Digital: Comparing Two Italian Anticorruption Campains

After the big bang of Tangentopoli (1992), in Italy a growing awareness has gradually emerged about the relevance of corruption (della Porta and Vannucci: 2007, Vannucci: 2009). Citizens have understood how pervasive corruption could be and which negative effects this phenomenon could generate on their lives, related to the political, economic and social system (della Porta: 2013, 2014). This growth in awareness can be framed in the development of civil society as an intermediate body that emerges in the 1990s (La Valle: 2006), due to the weakening of the role of parties (Sciarrone: 2017). The role of responsible citizenship is growing, also thanks to the flourishing and strengthening of associations, which come out of the voluntary sector, becoming professional, and growing day by day as an instrument of democratic action (Rossi and Zamagni: 2011). Certainly, the spread of the web and the possibility for people to access information more easily have favored the growth of anticorruption activism. This dynamic of access has also generated the progressive need of accountability for politicians, according to the logic of disintermediation, that has activated different forms of communication between politics and their electors: the voters ask for transparency (Biancalana: 2018). The period between 2010 and 2015 is characterized by the evolution of bottom-up handling tools and the consequent activation of citizenship. For example, in this period the smartphone is spread (the first models arrive in Italy between 2008 and 2009) and the online platforms for collecting signatures come to life (change.org arrives in Italy in 2012). The article aims to examine two anti-corruption campaigns activated at close range by the same NGO, Libera (the main Italian NGO against organized crime), in a comparative perspective, to highlight how the spread of the network and technologies has profoundly changed the perspective and consequently the possibilities of action from below against corruption in a limited period of time (Mattoni: 2020). This contribution will first briefly assess the theoretical challenges of social movement theory applied to research on corruption and anti-corruption, then it will map some of the characteristics of this two important campaign powered by NGO Libera, the main Italian NGO against organized crime. Therefore, it will provide the first pioneering study on the evolution of anti-corruption mobilizations in Italy, in the period 2010-2015, with particular reference to the Corrotti (Corrupt) campaign (2010-2012) and the Riparte il futuro (Restarting the Future) campaign (2013-2015).