Medieval Italian political culture was founded on a general mistrust of the candidates for public office. Officials attempted to counteract what they perceived as a natural tendency toward corruption by instituting complex voting strategies designed to make chance the deciding factor in elections. This point has important ramifications for recent theories concerning the origins of social capital and civic society.

Issue Section:
Comment and Controversy
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© 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.
2004
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