The SCALPO project adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of state capture and legal corruption, through a combination of political science, economics and law’s perspectives, aiming at (1) filling the gap in terms of conceptualisation, operationalization, measurement and empirical investigation; (2) at explaining temporal and spatial variation in their manifestations in Italy in the last three decades; (3) at evaluating their impact upon policy making and people’s confidence towards democratic institutions. Focusing on the Italian case, the project will investigate specific forms of SCALPO practices by looking at the three levels through which political systems operate and promote their legitimization: input (lobbying and informal political finance), throughput (conflict of interests and revolving doors) and output level (distributive politics and criminal organization infiltration in public procurement). The project aims at developing some proxy measures of the three main forms of SCALPO practices, by collecting new data and information at the national and subnational level and, at the same time, by drawing on already compiled and available databases on lobbying, political funding and public procurement. The project will expand the set of commonly discussed indicators in the literature of corruption to new ones derived from the analysis of SCALPO practices.
