Mafia patronage is often disguised payment for protection, not ordinary favor exchange.

Evidence

In matters of patronage mafiosi differ little from other southern Italians. They may at times be successful because of the lurking threat of violence, but they do not make much use of violence in such dealings, nor are they invariably successful. Those who can bestow favors are often too important to them in other ways to be easy targets: doctors, professors, judges, bank managers, businessmen, and last but not least politicians who display an open-minded attitude are treated with care. Most important, what looks like patronage is often a form of payment for protection either provided or promised by mafiosi. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 462

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gambetta’s own thesis that ‘favors’ and protection blur — and to Milgrom et al.’s private-judge model where patronage systems substitute for formal contracting.