Calabrian ‘illegitimacy’ in the (inter)national imaginary today is largely the result of the region's association with the ’ndrangheta. Using analysis of oral history interviews, this research examines how this ‘illegitimacy’ influences the self-perception of Calabrians. It argues that a spectrum of prejudice and its effects can be mapped out both metaphorically and geographically. This spectrum incorporates Italy's position in relation to northern Europe, the South's position within Italy, Calabria's position within the South and the position within Calabria of certain communities. A number of towns in the Locride are at the extreme end of this spectrum: Locri, San Luca, Africo and Platì. Analysis of the (mis)recognition of inhabitants of these communities, including by other Calabrians, demonstrates how the experience of shame may be layered. This paper also considers how interviewees appear to deny their social and cultural proximity with the ’ndrangheta and the role this plays in a self-perpetuating cycle involving stereotypes, ’ndrangheta growth and extreme socioeconomic conditions.

The article uses archival sources to critique the currently dominant etymological approach to the history of the word ’ndrangheta as used to refer to the Calabrian mafia. Scholars such as Paolo Martino and John Trumper have latched onto the word's ancient Greek origins to argue that the mafia organisation that we today call ’Ndrangheta has origins dating back many centuries. Moreover, according to Martino in particular, the flattering connotations of the word ’ndrangheta (courage, martial prowess, manliness) indicate that the ’Ndrangheta as a social phenomenon was rooted in the same positive values, and that it only later degenerated into criminality. This article proposes that the work of Martino and Trumper represents a largely evidence-free extension of etymology into the field of history. Analysing the latest archival evidence about the word from criminal trials conducted in the 1920s and early 1930s, and setting it in the context of current historiography and criminology on the ’Ndrangheta, the article argues that two conclusions about the history of the word are likely: that the use of ’ndrangheta as a name for the Calabrian mafia began at around the time it first appeared in the documentary sources; that the first to adopt it were mafiosi themselves.

This article presents the results of a piece of research into extortion in the city of Palermo between 2004 and 2015. Highlighting the importance of the territorial context among the factors that explain the mafia phenomenon, the study draws on two different georeferencing databases: the first relating to the distribution of extortion across the Sicilian capital's various districts, and the second relating to the distribution of Palermo businesses that had joined the Addiopizzo anti-extortion movement. Although the empirical material is problematic, marked territorial variations emerge from a comparative analysis of the two databases, prompting a number of potential interpretations.

Political and criminal violence are an integral part of recent Italian history. Killings and mass murders have moulded everyday life and the collective memory of the Italian people, changing the shape of public life. Veneration of the dead has taken on a symbolic function and become part of a new ‘civil religion’, which has redefined Italy’s national identity. Scholars are currently examining the role of mafia victims in this phenomenon, concentrating in particular on the bombings that took place in 1992. Following the crisis that marked the end of the First Republic, symbolic ties to figures like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino became an essential aspect of redefining democratic mobilisation. Nevertheless, when examined from a long-term perspective, the relationship between the Italian population and the celebration of mafia victims is more complex than it may at first appear. This article aims to analyse the contradictions inherent in the issue, focusing on the funerals of mafia victims in order to examine the relationships between political and institutional bodies, the Italian population as a whole, and the local community, in the celebration of the dead. Through this analysis, it seeks to consider both the achievements and failures in the construction of this new ‘civil religion’ in a contemporary society.

This article presents the results of some empirical research on extortion in Palermo. The project is based on the administration of a structured questionnaire with traders in various districts within Palermo and villages in the provincial interior, in two phases, the first in 2007 and second in 2012. The objective was to explore traders’ opinions on the various aspects of the phenomenon of extortion: its characteristics, causes, possible solutions, and the responsibilities of every actor in the battle against this illegal enterprise. In the period in which the research was undertaken, there was a wave of strong anti-mafia and anti-racketeering activism, particularly stimulated by the emergence in 2004 of the Comitato Addiopizzo and culminating in the establishment of the first ‘antiracket’ association in Palermo.

This is a full bibliography of the works of Christopher Duggan, including his D.Phil thesis, books, contributions to edited collections, articles in journals, newspapers and other periodicals, book reviews and review articles. It illustrates both the range of his own scholarship and his engagement with the fields of modern Italian history, politics, society and culture.

This article starts by discussing aspects of Christopher Duggan’s first book La mafia durante il fascismo, published in 1986, whose main topic was the anti-mafia campaign led by the prefect Cesare Mori in the latter half of the 1920s. The book’s distinctive features were its rigorous historical approach and use of archival sources: these set it apart from most other work on these topics at the time, when the idea that the mafia could be subjected to historical research had not yet been properly established. In its central thesis Duggan’s book was influenced by previous interpretations of the mafia, then still widely shared, that denied its nature as a structured organisation. Duggan argued here that Fascism used accusations of mafia involvement essentially as a way of attacking its political opponents. The final part of the article presents key aspects of a newer area of research on the mafia and Fascism, the 1930s, when a new campaign to suppress the mafia was not made use of for propaganda purposes.

In 1961 the peace activist and anti-mafia campaigner Danilo Dolci spoke at a protest event at the Italian centennial of unification celebrations hosted by the City of Philadelphia. The reactions to the talk he gave on development initiatives in Western Sicily provide some insight into the transnational discussion that was developing around the mafia, governance and leadership in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Dolci and his supporters made the suggestion that the problems encountered by the post-war governments in Italy, Sicily and Philadelphia were a result of leaderships which presented or made the appearance of change but did not fix the underlying problems. This article maps how the conversation developed, why the idea of the mafia as a ‘thing’, an operating criminal organisation with Sicilian origins, was such an important narrative, and what it meant for those trying to make a claim to leadership positions.

From 2008 Sicily’s president was Raffaele Lombardo, leader of the Movimento per le Autonomie (MpA), a party founded by politicians who were already well established in the city of Catania and its province. In the summer of 2012 Lombardo’s government was forced to resign following an investigation that exposed the connections between the president and Mafia families in eastern Sicily. This article draws on two ethnographic studies carried out in Catania between 2009 and 2013: in describing the political behaviour and power relations between voters, local councillors and MpA executive officers, the research examined the tendency to internalise the widely understood narrative about politics and patronage in Sicily that Lombardo and his colleagues embodied. By relating ethnographic data to the legal documents showing the links between MpA leaders and Cosa Nostra bosses, I argue that social and cultural support for the party will have included support from local Mafia members.

This article offers a comparative analysis of the phenomenon of ransom kidnapping in Italy between the late 1960s and the late 1990s, a period in which hundreds of citizens were abducted and held by Sardinian banditry, the Sicilian Mafia, and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta. While ransom kidnapping far surpassed political kidnapping in the number of victims it produced, it has received only a fraction of the scholarly attention that has been given to political abductions during the anni di piombo. Tracing the different roots, periods, and development of ransom kidnapping, this article sheds light on the distinct uses that banditry, the Mafia, and the ’Ndrangheta made of this crime; highlights the impact that national economic transformations and the state had on the increase of this phenomenon; and demonstrates how for the Italian underworld, kidnapping was both a reaction to and a means of modernisation. It also argues that particularly in the case of the ’Ndrangheta, kidnapping became a veritable industry.

This article looks at three Italian mafia organizations (Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and ‘Ndrangheta). It applies an organizational approach to the understanding of violence in mafia organizations by studying the relationship between their organizational orders and their criminal behavior. The article identifies two different organizational orders, vertical and horizontal, and demonstrates that Italian mafias, although operating in similar environments, can greatly differ from each other, and over time, in terms of their organizational model. Findings suggest that mafias with a vertical organizational order, due to the presence of higher levels of coordination, (1) have greater control over conflict, as proved by the lower number of “ordinary” murders; and (2) have greater capacity to fight state repression, as testified by the greater number of “high-profile” assassinations (e.g. politicians, magistrates, and other institutional members) that they carry out. Evidence is provided using a mixed-methods approach that combines a qualitative, organizational analysis of historical and judiciary sources, in order to reconstruct the organizational models and their evolution over time, with a quantitative analysis of assassination trends, in order to relate organizational orders to the use of violence.

Mussolini had declared that Fascism, through the anti-mafia campaign entrusted to Cesare Mori, prefect of Palermo, in the second half of the 1920s, had conclusively liberated Sicily from the mafia. However, from the early 1930s a new deterioration of public order on the island was evident, and the regime was forced to launch a second, and much less publicised, repression of this phenomenon. In the course of its careful investigations the body given responsibility for pursuing this repression, the Ispettorato Generale di Pubblica Sicurezza per la Sicilia, compiled a series of reports, including the Processo verbale di denunzia relating to the area around Palermo. With a level of detail never seen before, these reports described the structure, organisation and dynamics of mafia groups. This was possible because police officers had available members of the mafia groups themselves – genuine pentiti – who had decided to make disclosures to the authorities.

This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to analyse the symbolic religious language utilised by mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano in his social interactions with the lower echelons of the Sicilian mafia. When Provenzano assumed control of Cosa Nostra in the 1990s, he inherited an organisation severely diminished by a decade of internal conflicts, violence and the arrest of numerous leaders. The article argues that religious performative behaviour and language were used by the mafia boss to establish his leadership over Cosa Nostra, reshape its internal structure, and thereby revitalise an organisation in apparent terminal decline.

Tony Gentile is a professional press photographer. The shot he took of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino shortly before they were murdered by the mafia in 1992 has become one of the most widespread vehicles of public memory of the two heroic magistrates. Here he is interviewed by John Dickie about how he came to take the picture, and how it became so famous.

This article analyses Canadian perceptions of Italy at the governmental and societal levels. It argues that Canadians pay relatively little attention to things Italian and that their images of Italy are somewhat stereotypical. Italian politics do not receive much attention and when they do, domestic political aspects prevail over foreign policy ones. The Canadian press represents Italy as a country with a cultural and artistic past, an economic system that finds it difficult to adjust to globalisation and hence destined to decline, a corrupt political system and last, but not least, a society exhibiting many curious, and even bizarre, streaks.