Turning the Vicious Circle Around: New Frontiers in the Fight against the Mafia

Despite the internationalization of the organized crime, the importance of territorial control remains a vital element of Cosa Nostra’s power (Gambetta, 1993:31). As noted by Sciarrone, the payment of rackets is underestimated as a means through which the Mafia exerts control over a local territory (Sciarrone, 2004: 26). Surveys indicate that about 70 percent of the firms in Sicily have been subject to racketeering (Asmundo & Lisciandra, 2008: 227). This article analyzes the anti-racket organization Addiopizzo, formed by a group of students in Palermo in 2004. Addiopizzo’s anti-racket campaign “change your shopping habits to fight the pizzo” represents an indirect method of fighting the mafia in contrast to repressive measures that directly target the criminals and their organizations through the criminal justice system (Paoli, 2007). Indirect measures address a broad set of actors: entrepreneurs, associations, public administrations, and schools, and often aim at a long-term change of habits and cultural mind-sets (La Spina, 2008:197; Gunnarson, 2008; Schneider & Schneider, 1994; 2003). By supporting the firms that refuse to pay rackets and by encouraging consumers to support these firms in their role as consumers, Addiopizzo has, to date, mobilized about 700 firms and 10 000 citizens (Forno & Gunnarson, 2010; Partridge, 2011). This paper focuses on the firms that decided to join Addiopizzo’s campaign. Referring to social capital theory the paper analyzes whether networks, norms or trust mattered for the entrepreneurs that decided to join Addiopizzo’s campaign. While Putnam did not separate the three dimensions in his work (Putnam, 1993), these three aspects of social capital will be analyzed separately here. The paper also includes descriptive data of the firms and biographical data about the average entrepreneur that joined the campaign. The paper builds on a unique data set collected among entrepreneurs in October-December 2011 and in April 2012.