International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 82

3.1.1. The Trade-Off
Criminal Networks: The Forgotten Actors of International Politics
The first form of Mafias’ political strategy is an alliance at local and national levels
with public authorities. Thanks to their territorial control, Mafias force governments
to grant them protection or facilitation for their criminal activities in exchange
for access to enclave populations, markets, criminal finance, illicit labor,
and votes. Politicians acquire present or future political power thanks to Mafias’ financial
and territorial support during and after electoral campaigns. They notably
coerce people on territories they control in order to orientate their votes toward
one candidate. Mafias simultaneously provide marginalized groups with access to
the goods and services controlled by higher political powers, to protection, and to
social mobility. This trade-off usually implies the use of corruption, understood as
a transaction which exchanges an illegal or illicit exercise of government discretion
for a criminal resource (Cockayne 2016, 35). Strategic corruption at its “highest”
level aims to decisively shape the law-making process and its implementation
by manipulating key public figures.
Corruption allows Mafias to transform their enemy, the public force, into
an ally and accomplice. Contributing voluntarily to Mafias’ activities and neglecting
its professional duties make the public officer tied to the activity in the long
term, the coercive threat being an efficient insurance. Corruption creates a sense
of friendly partnership, while the corrupted is entirely submitted to its criminal allegiance,
therefore ensuring continuity to the criminal activity. The financial gains
permitted thanks to corruption, notably the gaining of public markets, surpass
greatly the initial cost consented.
Italy illustrates perfectly the electoral trade-off between a national leading
political party and Mafias. In fact, following the Second World War, Cosa Nostra
developed close links with the Christian-Democrats party. It notably helped the
Christian-Democrats leaders to be continuously elected in Sicily, Naples, or Rome
for several decades. After the fall of the Christian Democracy in the late 1980s,
highlighted by the murder of Christian Democrat strong man in Sicily Salvo Lima,
the Mafia turned to a new political force named Forza Italia. In 1993, during his
trial, Mafiosi repentant Antonio Giuffré affirmed indeed that Silvio Berlusconi,
Forza Italia leader and head of Italian multinational Fininvest, was personally in
touch with Cosa Nostra’ Bosses in the 1970s and 1980s (Dickie 2004). Moreover,
according to Giuffré, Senator Marcello Dell’Utri—Berlusconi’s right-hand man—
traded the ease of judiciary pressure on Cosa Nostra in exchange for electoral support
(Dickie 2004). Dell’Utri was convicted of corruption charges in 2004.
3.1.2. Political–Criminal Nexus
The second level of Mafias’ political strategy involves the creation of an intimate
partnership with Nation-States’ institutions. In a complex interplay between the
regulated and unregulated world, Mafias and local elites’ fate becomes intertwined.
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