A Global History of Organised Crime
Two big stories dominate the history of the past two centuries - the formation of the modern nation state and the global rollout of liberal capitalism. Organised criminal groups have been integral to both. They have taxed and protected what the state can't or won't. And they have pioneered forms of trade and economic administration when legal corporations have remained risk averse. This course introduces students to the world of the Italian and American mafias, the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Tong gangs, and the Mexican cartels and places them at the center of the story of the modern world.
In more micro-terms, this course introduces students to three concepts drawn from criminological literature: the protection racket, criminal governance and the grey zone or covert netherworld (where organised crime and the state meet). It also introduces students to ideas, mostly derived from cultural studies, about the cultural construction of the mafia. We shall do this through a mix of criminological literature and more traditional historical narratives.
Reading list
The reading list is divided thematically. However, there are some good narrative histories of the mafia, which can be used especially for your essay assignment.
Italian Mafia
John DIckie, Blood Brotherhoods, Mafia Republic, Cosa Nostra
Saltavore Lupo, The Two Mafia: A Transatlantic History
Mexican Cartels
Benjamin T. Smith, The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
Japanese Yakuza
Eiko Maruko Siniawar, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860-1960
Chinese Triads
Peng Wang, "Hong Kong triads: the historical and political evolution of urban criminal polity, 1842–2020", Urban History
Russian Mafia
Federico Varese, The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy
Day 1: An introduction to the course
Please watch a movie about organised crime before you arrive. Classics include The Godfather I and II, Gomorrah, Goodfellas, Once Upon a Time in America, Eastern Promises, Infernal Affairs, Millers Crossing.
What is the relationship between culture and organised crime?
What do organised criminals do?
What is the difference between the state and the mafia?
Are mafiosi capitalists?
Day 2: Pre-Organised crime: Bandits
How social were bandits?
How did the redistributive or social elements of banditry change over time and space?
What factors shaped the nature of particular bandit groups?
Core reading
Read Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, pp. 1-30 and
Anton Blok, "The Peasant and the Brigand: Social Banditry Reconsidered.", Comparative Studies in Society and History
Secondary reading
Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels
P. O'Malley, "Social bandits, modern capitalism and the traditional peasantry", Journal of Peasant Studies
Elizabeth J. Perry, Rebels and revolutionaries in north China, 1845-1945
Richard W. Slatta, (ed) Bandidos: The Varieties of Latin American Banditry
J. Koliopoulos, (1989). "Brigandage and Irredentism in Nineteenth-Century Greece.", European History Quarterly
Nicolas Curott, Alexander Fink, "Bandit Heroes: Social, Mythical, or Rational?" The American Journal of Economics and Sociology,
R. A . Austin, "Social Bandits and other heroic criminals", James Currey, Banditry, Social Rebellion and other social protest in Africa
Joseph, G. (1990). "On the Trail of Latin American Bandits." Latin American Research Review, 7-53
Billy Jaynes Chandler, The Bandit King: Lampião of Brazil.
Day 3: What is organised crime?
What are the common features of organized crime?
Why do some places breed organized crime groups but others not?
Can organized crime be defined simply as the operation of protection rackets?
Why do organized crime groups have certain common characteristics despite their geographical and temporal differences? Capitalism, state formation, human nature?
Core readings
Paoli, L., & Vander Beken, T. (2014). Organized crime: A contested concept. In L. Paoli (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of organized crime (pp. 13–31). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
OR
Federico Varese, Mafias on the move: How organized Crime Conquers New Territories,(Princeton, 2011), Introduction
Secondary readings
Pino Arlacchi, Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Klaus Von Lampe, Organized Crime: Analyzing Illegal Activities, Criminal Structures, and Extra-legal Governance, Chapter 2
Jane and Peter Schneider, The Mafia and Capitalism. An Emerging Paradigm, Sociologica
Edward Kleemans, Theoretical Perspectives on Organised Crime, In L. Paoli (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of organized crime (pp. 13–31). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Donald Cressey, Theft of the Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America
L. Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style
T. Schelling, "Economics and Criminal Enterprise", The Public Interest, 1967
Alan A. Block and William J. Chambliss, Organising Crime
Day 4: The birth of the Italian Mafias
What is a protection racket?
Diego Gambetta and Federico Varese argue that mafias essentially provide protection for industries that the state refuses to. What do they mean?
What does this tell us about the relationship between the state and organized crime?
Why does Dickie disagree with Gambetta’s thesis?
Core readings
Diego Gambetta,The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), Introduction and Chapter 4
Dickie, J, “Ginsborg, Gambetta, and the Mafia,” in Paul Ginsborg and the Historiography of Modern Italy: Revolutions, Revolt and Resistance,eds. Foot, J, and Gundle, S (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
Secondary readings
Bandiera, O. (2003). "Land Reform, the Market for Protection, and the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: Theory and Evidence." Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization
Paolo Buonanno , Ruben Durante , Giovanni Prarolo , Paolo Vanin, "Poor Institutions, Rich Mines: Resource Curse in the Origins of the Sicilian Mafia" The Economic Journal
John Dickie, Blood Brotherhoods, pp. 31-63, 85-109
Salvatore Lupo, History of the Mafia (NY: Columbia University press, 2009), Chapter 2
Day 5: The Italian mafia and the fascists
What was the relationship between Mussolini’s government and the Sicilian mafia?
What was the relationship between the U.S. wartime government and the Sicilian mafia?
“It was the mafia that essentially freed Sicily from fascist control”. Do you agree?
Core reading
John Dickie, Cosa Nostra, Chapter 4
Secondary Reading
Salvatore Lupo, The Two Mafias: A Transatlantic History (Palgrave, 2015), Chapter 4
Tim Newark, The Mafia at War: Allied Collusion with the Mob
Matthew Black, Operation Underworld: How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War II
John Dickie, Blood Brotherhoods, pp. 293-369
Rodney Campbell, The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy
Ezio Costanzo, Mafia and the Allies: Sicily 1943 and the Return of the Mafia
Day 6: Covert Netherworlds, organised crime and anticommunism
Why did capitalist governments employ organized crime groups as anti-communist hitmen?
Why were there no communist-run organized crime groups?
Core reading
Alfred McCoy, “Covert Netherworld: An Invisible Interstice in the Modern World System” in Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 58, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2016), pp. 847-879
Secondary reading
Richard Michael Gibson and Wen H. Chen, The secret army: Chiang Kai-Shek and the drug warlords of the golden triangle
Johnathan Marshall,The Dark Quadrant: Organized Crime, Big Business, and the Corruption of American Democracy(Lanham; MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021).
Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssínen, Webs of smoke: Smugglers, warlords, spies and the history of the International drug trade (London: Rowan and Littlefield), chapter 6 on the Shainghai Green Gang
David E Kaplan and Alec Dubro, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld (Berkeley: UC Press, 2003 edn), Chapter 2 on postwar Yakuza
Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, Chapter 2 on Corsicans in Marseilles
R and S Bartley, Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía
Day 7: The myths of organised crime
Some authors have argued that media presentation of the mafia is a form of moral panic and ethnic prejudice? Do you agree?
How do organised criminals use cultural forms?
How can we as researchers delineate between the mythology and the reality surrounding organised criminals?
Core readings
Saltavore Lupo, The Two Mafias, Introduction
Osvaldo Zavala, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture, Introduction
Secondary readings
T. Adler, Hollywood and the Mob: Movies, Mafia, Sex and Death,
Cawelti, J. G., “The New Mythology of Crime”, boundary 2, 3 (1975), no. 2: 324-357
G. S. Larke-Walsh, , Screening the Mafia: Masculinity, Ethnicity and Mobsters from The Godfather to The Sopranos
Osvaldo Zavala, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture
David E Ruth, Inventing the Public Enemy
Federico Varese, "The Secret History of Japanese Cinema: The Yakuza Movies." Global Crime 7: 105-124.
Marc Edberg, "Drug Traffickers as Social Bandits: Culture and Drug Trafficking in Northern Mexico and the Border Region" Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
Day 8: Criminal Governance
What is criminal governance?
Why does it differ over time and space?
Why do some organised crime groups offer criminal governance and others not?
Core reading
Benjamin Lessing, "Conceptualizing Criminal Governance", Perspectives on Politics
Secondary reading
Ioan Grillo, Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields and the New Politics of Latin America
Sergio Skaperdas, The political economy of organized crime: providing protection when the state does not" Economics of Governance
Enrique Desmond Arias, Criminal Enterprises and Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean
Paolo Campana and Federico Varese "Organized Crime in the United Kingdom: Governance of Markets and Communities" British Journal of Criminology
Benjamin Lessing and Graham Denyer Willis, “Legitimacy in Criminal Governance" American Political Science Review
Magaloni, Beatriz, Edgar, Franco-Vivanco, and Vanessa, Melo. 2020. “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro.” American Political Science Review
Day 9: Women and Organised Crime
What roles do women play in the mafia?
What limits are their to women's role in organised crime?
Core reading
Felia Allum, Irene Marchi, Analyzing the Role of Women in Italian Mafias: the Case of the Neapolitan Camorra, Qualitative Sociology
Secondary reading
Ombretta, Ingrasci, Gender and Organized Crime in Italy
Felia Allum, Women of the Mafia: Power and Influence in the Neapolitan Camorra
Giovanni Fiandaca, ed.Women and the Mafia: Female Roles in Organized Crime Structures
Claire Longrigg, Mafia Women
Elaine Carey, Female Drug Traffickers
Deborah Bonello, Narcas: The Secret Rise of Women in Latin America's Cartels
Anabel Hernández, Emma and Other Narco Women
Day 10: A mafia tour of Venice