IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ieb/wpaper/doc2016-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mafia, elections and violence against politicians

Author

Listed:
  • Gianmarco Daniele

    (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB)

  • Gemma Dipoppa

    (University of Pennsylvania)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianmarco Daniele & Gemma Dipoppa, 2016. "Mafia, elections and violence against politicians," Working Papers 2016/29, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
  • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2016-29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2016-IEB-WorkingPaper-29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brender, Adi & Drazen, Allan, 2005. "Political budget cycles in new versus established democracies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1271-1295, October.
    2. Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2017. "Mafia in the Ballot Box," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 134-167, August.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ernesto Dal Bo & Rafael Di Tella, 2003. "Capture by Threat," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1123-1152, October.
    5. Akhmed Akhmedov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2004. "Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1301-1338.
    6. David Austen-Smith, 1987. "Interest groups, campaign contributions, and probabilistic voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 123-139, January.
    7. Gianmarco Daniele & Benny Geys, 2015. "Organised Crime, Institutions and Political Quality: Empirical Evidence from Italian Municipalities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 233-255, August.
    8. Melissa Dell, 2015. "Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1738-1779, June.
    9. Guglielmo Barone & Gaia Narciso, 2011. "The effect of mafia on public transfers," Trinity Economics Papers tep2111, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    10. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin, 2015. "Crime and Economic Incentives," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 389-408, August.
    11. Shi, Min & Svensson, Jakob, 2006. "Political budget cycles: Do they differ across countries and why?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1367-1389, September.
    12. Roland Hodler & Dominic Rohner, 2012. "Electoral terms and terrorism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 181-193, January.
    13. Antoine Cazals & Alexandre Sauquet, 2015. "How do elections affect international cooperation? Evidence from environmental treaty participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 263-285, March.
    14. Antoine Cazals & Alexandre Sauquet, 2015. "How do elections affect international cooperation? Evidence from environmental treaty participation," Post-Print halshs-01157973, HAL.
    15. Francesco Calderoni, 2011. "Where is the mafia in Italy? Measuring the presence of the mafia across Italian provinces," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 41-69, February.
    16. Buonanno, Paolo & Prarolo, Giovanni & Vanin, Paolo, 2016. "Organized crime and electoral outcomes. Evidence from Sicily at the turn of the XXI century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 61-74.
    17. Baron, David P., 1994. "Electoral Competition with Informed and Uninformed Voters," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 33-47, March.
    18. Paolo Pinotti, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 203-232, August.
    19. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 2001. "Lobbying and Welfare in a Representative Democracy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 67-82.
    20. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson & Rafael J. Santos, 2013. "The Monopoly Of Violence: Evidence From Colombia," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 5-44, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniele, Gianmarco, 2019. "Strike one to educate one hundred: Organized crime, political selection and politicians’ ability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 650-662.
    2. Giovanni Bernardo & Irene Brunetti & Mehmet Pinar & Thanasis Stengos, 2021. "Measuring the presence of organized crime across Italian provinces: a sensitivity analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 31-95, February.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2020. "Weak States: Causes and Consequences of the Sicilian Mafia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 537-581.
    4. Boeri, Filippo & Di Cataldo, Marco & Pietrostefani, Elisabetta, 2022. "Localised effects of re-allocated real estate mafia assets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116682, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Accardo, Pasquale & De Feo, Giuseppe & De Luca, Giacomo, 2023. "With a little help from my friends. Political competition in the shadow of organized crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    6. Stefania Fontana & Giorgio d’Agostino, 2024. "Anti-mafia policies and public goods in Italy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 198(3), pages 493-529, March.
    7. Scognamiglio, Annalisa, 2018. "When the mafia comes to town," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 573-590.
    8. Ferrante, Livio & Reito, Francesco & Spagano, Salvatore & Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2021. "Shall we follow the money? Anti-mafia policies and electoral competition," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 1110-1130.
    9. Nicola Mastrorocco, 2018. "Organised Crime, Captured Politicians and the Allocation of Public Resources," Trinity Economics Papers tep1018, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    10. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    11. Caglayan, Mustafa & Flamini, Alessandro & Jahanshahi, Babak, 2021. "Hindering human capital accumulation: A hidden cost of the silent mafia?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 828-845.
    12. Francesca M. Calamunci & Livio Ferrante & Rossana Scebba, 2022. "Closed for mafia: Evidence from the removal of mafia firms on commercial property values," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(5), pages 1487-1511, November.
    13. Baraldi, Anna Laura & Immordino, Giovanni & Stimolo, Marco, 2022. "Self-selecting candidates or compelling voters: How organized crime affects political selection," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    14. Antoine Cazals & Pierre Mandon, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01320586, HAL.
    15. Marco Di Cataldo & Nicola Mastrorocco, 2022. "Organized Crime, Captured Politicians, and the Allocation of Public Resources [“Mafiaand Public Spending: Evidence on the Fiscal Multiplier from a Quasi-Experiment]," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(3), pages 774-839.
    16. Antoine CAZALS & Pierre MANDON, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers 201609, CERDI.
    17. Galletta, Sergio, 2017. "Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 90-105.
    18. Galindo-Silva, Hector, 2015. "New parties and policy outcomes: Evidence from Colombian local governments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 86-103.
    19. Marina Cavalieri & Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2020. "Does the Fish Rot from the Head? Organised Crime and Educational Outcomes in Southern Italy," Working papers 97, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    20. Can Li & Danxue Gao & Weiguo Zhong, 2020. "A Political Cycle of Regional FDI Spillovers in an Emerging Market: Evidence from China," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 151-176, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Organized crime; political violence; elections; rent seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2016-29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iebubes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.