space partly overlaps with the perspective/identity map. For the ‘action’ side, the main difference is between scholars who adopt a rational choice perspective and scholars who follow a less constraining theory of action.
Figure 2.3: Mafia studies, after 1970: a conceptual map (II)
Rational choice theory in the study of organized crime was pioneered by Reuter in the early 1980s, and then applied to the study of the mafia by Sabetti (1984). Gambetta (1993) made it a cornerstone of his economic theory of the mafia as ‘an industry of private protection’ (for an application of RAT to an important historical case that exhibits some resemblance to the mafia – an application apparently independent from Gambetta’s and with somewhat different results – see Leeson 2009). The idea of ‘social structure’ is not a uniform one: for some (e.g., Gambetta), it roughly means the structure of property rights; for others (e.g., Blok), it is the structure of social relations; for others again, it is mainly the class structure (e.g., Santino). ‘Culture’ is conceived of in terms of norms and values by Hess, who wrote in the 1960s, but not by Paoli (2003) or Santoro (2007) – both of whom make use of a ‘revised’ concept of culture in terms of symbols and cognitive schemas. This is the same concept of culture we can find in the economic theory of the mafia, even though it is almost never named as such (the term ‘culture’ is reserved by Gambetta for norms and values; skills and cognition are not called culture in the economic theory of the mafia, even though they are ‘culture’ in the most recent cultural theory which capitalizes on Bourdieu, Geertz, Douglas and so on: see, e.g., Smith 2001). In the economic theory of mafia, mafia culture has a regulative status, whereas in Paoli (2003), and even more so in Santoro (2007), it plays a constitutive role (on this distinction between regulative and constitutive, see DiMaggio 1994).
Last but not least, it is useful to try to locate and make sense of sociological (or anthropological, or political science) works on the mafia according to sociological types or genres (extending the classifications used for sociology to other disciplines). I have in mind here, in particular, the fourfold distinction between professional sociology, policy sociology, critical sociology and public sociology (Burawoy 2005). Let me say that these distinctions are frequently collapsed or blurred in the literature on the mafia, mainly because of the strong presence of a critical and public attitude even among followers of ‘professional’ sociology (this is why I have decided not to include a diagram for this classification). In a sense, we could say that a critical stance is implicit in every piece of sociological work on the mafia. This criticism is usually addressed towards the mafia itself, and secondarily towards the social structure and/or the political system making the mafia possible. Moreover, it is a common ambition of mafia scholars to write for, and to be read by, an audience that is larger than their peers or students: this makes room for frequent incursions into the territories of public sociology, with their typical features (readability, communication strategies useful for reaching large audiences, etc.). This is what makes a book like Gomorrah (Saviano 2006, 2007) less an instance of public sociology of mafia (but recall that Saviano, even though he is a professional writer, has an educational background as a philosopher and anthropologist) than a successful performance in creative writing grounded on readings of public documents and backed by direct (and sometimes participant) observation. The ambition of offering policy advice or suggestions is very common among scholars on mafia as organized crime – who often act or have acted (or hope to act) as advisers to governments or other public organizations (including NGOs), and are often asked to provide advice and recommendations for them.
An important point: it is often difficult to locate a given text in one or another class (or genre) because of the gap between explicit or manifest aims, and/or self-representation, and hidden or latent ones. It is not rare that texts or approaches presenting themselves as pure exercises of social analysis conceal (and commonly presume) a political or at least a normative stance towards a certain state of the world. It is not rare that this stance is communicated through the adoption of a linguistic register that sometimes exemplifies what has been termed – not without a normative bias – as ‘expressive sociology’ (Boudon 2002). As I will argue in the next chapter, this seems to be the case with the economic theory of the mafia, which presents itself as the most analytical and detached, if not scientific, representation of the mafia and mafia-like things, but it is grounded on a strong commitment to a well-defined political philosophical tradition, the liberal one running from John Locke to John Rawls, passing through Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville (see Santoro 2007). With Weber, we would say that this ‘relation to values’ is a necessary prerequisite and ingredient of any social study. With the same Weber, however, we could ask whether scholars working on mafia make every effort to put aside those same values or keep them under control when doing empirical research, theorizing about their data, and writing their texts on mafia.
In conclusion, we could say that the last four decades of mafia studies, at least in Italy, have been marked by a series of features that we can synthetize as the ‘G effects’ (dalla Chiesa 2010b; Santoro 2010). The first is the Generation effect. The second is the Justice effect (giustizia in Italian). The third is the Google effect. To these three we should add at least three others: a Gender effect, a Gambetta effect and, finally, a Gomorrah effect. In short, we are thinking of the following aspects:
1 New generations of researchers often move ahead forgetting the contributions of the previous generations of scholars. This is apparent in the almost total lack of references to classics of mafia studies as well as to scholars who have not entered the pantheon of contemporary authorities in these studies – e.g., Hess, Blok, the Schneiders, Arlacchi.
2 With the testimony of Buscetta, the maxi-trial, the assassinations of judges Falcone and Borsellino, and the rise of an antimafia movement, the justice system and its products have become the major source of reference, of information and even of symbolic legitimation in research on mafia. Today there is a large industry of articles and books almost exclusively built on court testimony and documents. The risk is to take as neutral what is inevitably the application of a point of view on mafia, losing sight of the technical legal constraints to which judges are subject and therefore of what cannot be captured by the judicial apparatus.
3 Google has become a relevant source even in mafia studies because of its readiness and its apparent completeness. But Google and the internet in general are not so transparent or so reliable as people often think as sources of data about a complex topic like mafia.
4 Gender considerations entered mafia studies only in the 1990s, with the first studies devoted to the role of women in mafia organizations and the increase of female mafia students sensitive to issues of gender identity and inequalities. Mafia is indeed a big topic for gender analysis, with its patriarchical organization, its references to honour and its gender-based and biased division of labour.
5 We already have introduced the Gambetta effect, and in the next chapter we will focus on this.
6 As everyone knows, Gomorrah has been one of the major bestselling publications in the world in recent decades. Saviano’s background as a graduate in philosophy with some anthropological education influenced the way the social sciences entered his writing as symbolic and intellectual resources in this sort of fictionalized ethnography of camorra life in some areas of Naples and its surrounding area (though the book’s final chapter is focused on a case of ‘mafia export’ to Scotland). Surely, the impact of Gomorrah on social research has been more indirect than direct – as a reference point for debating issues such as the comparative merits of academic writing and literature, or the impact of a certain kind of writing on public debate, or even the realibility of the sources used by Saviano in writing his book.This impact might be measured by the number of articles devoted to the book in sociological, historical and criminological journals, at least in Italy. However, its impact can follow much more subtle routes, as the vehicle for a certain vision of what the mafia is (and for Saviano the mafia is first and foremost a mark of incivility and
