History of Global Organised Crime (HI2K8)

Module Convenor: Benjamin Smith

This residential module will take place in Venice and aims to tell the story of the rise and fall of large-scale organised crime groups during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will be asked to engage with literature from history, criminology, and political science.

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 centre of the story of the modern world.

You will consider the integral role of women in criminal organisations, as well as the fatal price often paid by journalists and legal experts who attempt to expose and tackle illicit activity. You will interrogate the complex circumstances where organised crime and state politics can often be embodied by the same people, or where those groups are in close collusion. Pirates, traders in exotic wildlife, smugglers of human beings, and narco-traffickers are but a few of the activities we will explore across a global scale.

 

Syllabus

Seminar 1 | What is Organised Crime?

Seminar 2 | Omertà, "Honour", Ritual, & Origin

Seminar 3 | Italian Mafia: Cosa Nostra, Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta

Seminar 4 | The Japanese Yakuza

Seminar 5 | The Mexican Cartels

Seminar 6 | Journalists & Judges: The Fatal Price of Truth and Justice (Case Study Mexico & Italy)

Seminar 7 | More than the Wives: Queen-pins, Foot Soldiers, Snakeheads, & Women in Organised Crime

Seminar 8 | Piracy & The Illegal Wildlife Trade: Africa & South-East Asia

Seminar 9 | The Globalisation of Organised Crime

Seminar 10 | The Ethics of Glamorising Crime: Cinema, Music, Video Games, & Netflix

 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• To evaluate and critique the relationship between organised crime and capitalism
• To evaluate and critique the relationship between organised crime and state formation
• To engage with historiographical debates and think about the history and legacy of different historical concepts
• To encourage independent research, historiographical engagement, and the development of critical analysis
• To gain interpersonal and communication skills through the delivery of a presentation

 

Indicative Reading List

Paolo Buonanno, Durante Ruben, Prarolo Giovanni, Vanin Paolo

Poor institutions, rich mines: resource curse in the origins of the Sicilian mafia, Econ. J., 125 (2015), pp. F125-F202

Paoli, L. (2002). The paradoxes of organized crime. Crime, Law and Social Change, 37(1), 51– 97

Paoli, L. (2008). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style (first edition). Oxford University Press

Paoli, L. (Ed.). (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime (1 edition). Oxford University Press

Paoli, L. (2020). What Makes Mafias Different? Crime and Justice, 49(1), 141–222

Catino, M. (2019), Mafia Organizations: The Visible Hand of Criminal Enterprise. Cambridge University Press

Leonardo Schiascia, Days of the Owl

Mafia and Mafiosi, Henner Hess

Global Mafia, Antonio Nicasso and Lee Lamothe

Mafia Brotherhoods, John Dickie

Mafia and Antimafia, Umberto Santino

Anton Blok, The Mafia of a Sicilian Village

Roberto Dainotto, The Mafia: A Cultural History

Dash, M., The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and the Birth of the American Mafia. Ballantine Books, 2010

Gambetta, Diego. Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. Princeton University Press, 2011

Jamieson A., The Antimafia. Italy’s Fight Against Organized Crime. St. Martin’s Press, 2000

Lupo, S., History of the Mafia. Columbia University Press, 2009

Follain, J., The Last Godfathers. The rise and fall of the mafia’s most powerful family. Hodder, 2009

Reppetto, T. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. Holt, 2004

Schneider P., Schneider J., Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo. UCP, 2003

Behan T., See Naples and Die. The Camorra and Organized Crime. Tauris, 2002

Duggan C., Fascism and the Mafia. New Haven Press, 1989

Fiandaca G., Women and the Mafia: Female Roles in Organized Crime Structures. Springer, 2007

Gambetta D., The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection. Harvard University Press, 1996

Paoli L., Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style. Oxford, 2003

Glenny M., McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld. Knopf, 2008

Raab S., Five Families. The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Robson Books, 2006

Reppetto T., Bringing Down the Mob: The War against the American Mafia. Henry Holt, 2004

Federico Varese, Mafia Life

Federico Varese, Mafias on the Move

Letizia Paoli, The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime

David Kaplan, Yakuza : Japan's criminal underworld

Ioan Grillo, Gangster Warlords

Charles Tilly, Warmaking and Statemaking as Organized Crime, Center for Research on Social Organization, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982

Pen Wang, Hong Kong triads: the historical and political evolution of urban criminal polity, 1842–2020, Urban History , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , August 2023 , pp. 445 - 467

B.G. Martin, The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919–1937 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996)

F. Varese, The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in A New Market Economy (Oxford, 2001)

P. Wang, The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection (Oxford, 2017)

 

Assessment

• 3000 word essay (80%)

  • Students will reflect on a question related to the themes of the module, with reference to relevant historiographical debates

• Class Presentation (20%)

  • Class presentation and guidance through reading