Manzi, Lucia. Judicial Populism and Corruption Prosecutions in the Mani Pulite Operation. Law & Social Inquiry (2024). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Bar Foundation.
This article develops a new analytical framework for understanding the success of Italy’s Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption operation by showing how prosecutors relied on a populist interpretation of criminal law and procedure. Manzi argues that the prosecutors framed corruption as a systemic conflict between “virtuous citizens” and a broad class of “corrupt elites,” which allowed them to reinterpret legal categories, introduce innovations such as dazione ambientale, and create powerful incentives for defendants to cooperate. The article also demonstrates that prosecutors strategically used media outreach to rally public support and shield themselves from political and judicial backlash. This dual legal-behavioral dynamic—populist legal interpretation plus strategic public engagement—is what Manzi terms judicial populism.