Political parties benefiting from mafia support restrict the state legal apparatus against the mafia

Evidence

Both radicals and prominent socialists such as Bettino Craxi and Nino Buttitta denied all allegations of mafia influence. Although active collusion cannot be inferred, since the early 1980s both parties have nonetheless been active in trying to place strict formal limits on actions the authorities can take against the mafia—more so than any other party, including the Christian Democrats. They opposed the trials based on the evidence of mafiosi who had turned state’s evidence and supported the controversial decisions of the Corte di Cassazione—chaired by Judge Corrado Carnevale—which failed to uphold the verdicts of other courts. The Corte di Cassazione took the view that convictions could not rest exclusively on the revelations of the pentiti. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 486

Categorization

• XREF: This is the flip side of the Milgrom private-judge model: parties that receive mafia electoral support then shape the formal judiciary (restricting pentiti evidence) — a capture of the state’s arbitration function that partially substitutes for private enforcement. — connects to: Political parties can be underwritten by warlords running local protection rackets — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 592