ABSTRACT
A major player in trying to establish improve standards in the sphere is the non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI), which produces widely reported yearly check-ups on the levels of corruption in a large number of countries. We could say that corruption, as defined by TI, is that which does not conform to the ways of governance of neoliberal or social democratic societies. The Italian university appointments system is one of the most meritocratic and transparent that could be imagined. In the university version of the usual means by which jobs are allocated in the public sector there are differences in the extent to which such competitions are thought to be 'fixed'. In general, academic commentators on the Italian university investigative journalists, as well as innumerable contributors to Internet discussions all agree that the actual rules that govern Italian appointments are quite different from those set down by the law.
