La corruzione come "malattia": implicazioni sociali e culturali del considerare la corruzione come una patologia dello Stato italiano

Abstract

The article looks at how the use of the metaphor of "corruption as disease" has shaped the current public discourse on corruption and anti-corruption in Italy, through the use of a variegated terminology borrowed from the semantic field of biomedicine. In doing so the paradigms of medical anthropology will be applied to the symbolic representation of corruption as a pathology of the State, bringing examples of its usage both from academic works, politics and everyday rhetoric. In particular, it will be shown how the metaphor of "corruption as disease", which has found much space in the Italian media coverage on the phenomenon, acquires a special significance in how the circumstance is discursively constituted and consequently dealt with. The article is based on data collected through fieldwork research carried out in Lombardy between 2013 and 2015 as a part of the ANTICORRP.eu research project (WP4), and takes its cue from the most recent debate on corruption in Italy.