Mafia reputation requires mutual recognition, not merely self-adoption of identity marks.

Evidence

It does not follow that any group of Sicilian men who simply decide to adopt such identifying marks will automatically be allowed to enjoy the reputation associated with them. Mutual recognition of the legitimacy of their use is required. Thus, the mafia can be defined more accurately as those protection firms which acknowledge one another as suppliers of authentic protection, and above all successfully prevent others from making such a claim. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 408

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘mutual recognition’ gatekeeping is squarely a Milgrom-style multilateral reputational enforcement equilibrium — decentral coordination without a central body.