Mafia, Elections and Violence against Politicians

48 Pages Posted: 22 Jul 2016 Last revised: 8 Nov 2016

See all articles by Gianmarco Daniele

Gianmarco Daniele

University of Milan - Faculty of Law; Bocconi University

Gemma Dipoppa

Brown University, Political Science

Date Written: November 6, 2016

Abstract

Organized crime uses political violence to influence politics in a wide set of countries. This paper exploits a novel dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence against them. We test two competing theories to predict the use of violence i) before elections, to affect the electoral outcome and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election in areas with a high presence of organized crime, especially when elections result in a change of local government.

Keywords: organized crime, elections, mafia, local politics

Suggested Citation

Daniele, Gianmarco and Dipoppa, Gemma, Mafia, Elections and Violence against Politicians (November 6, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2812591 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2812591

Gianmarco Daniele (Contact Author)

University of Milan - Faculty of Law ( email )

Via Festa del Perdono, 7
20122 Milano
Italy

Bocconi University ( email )

Via Sarfatti 25
Milan, MI 20136
Italy

Gemma Dipoppa

Brown University, Political Science ( email )

Box 1860
Providence, RI 02912
United States

HOME PAGE: http://gemmadipoppa.com

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