Mafia in rebellious Ionian Calabria took on populist, antistate connotations.

Evidence

The 1985 report of the Commissione Parlamentare sul Fenomeno della Mafia reads: “On the Ionian side of Calabria—a society more marked by radical social struggles and popular rebellions—mafia power is often difficult to distinguish from antistate sentiment. It assumes populist connotations scarcely present in the Sicilian mafia or in the mafia of the Tyrrhenian regions of Calabria” (p. 53). By contrast, Fortunata Piselli (1988) holds that even in the Tyrrhenian areas the mafia has taken on similar populist features. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 864

Categorization

• QUESTION: Regional variation in mafia’s ideological coloring — why does antistate sentiment merge with mafia on the Ionian side but not Sicily? Gambetta’s protection-market model might treat this as branding differentiation.