Spanish divide-and-conquer policy only corrupted Naples because it predated Flemish independence

Evidence

Opposed to attributing explanatory value to “cause individualiste e pragmatiste,” Croce denies any role to deliberate action and blurs the conditions affecting southern Italy into a vague, wholistic historical flow. He gives no reason for dismissing Doria other than claiming in passing that the wickedness of the same Spanish oppressors had failed to pollute the people of the United Provinces, the implication being that the real cause of the “pollution” of the southerners must be sought elsewhere. But this argument does not stand up even to cursory scrutiny, for it neglects the causal-temporal sequence of events. During a long struggle for secession which lasted from the second half of the sixteenth century until the treaty of Munzen in 1648, the United Provinces rid themselves of the Hapsburgs, whereas the Neapolitans, inspired by that success, tried but failed in 1647-48. It was during that period, and in all likelihood because of events in the United Provinces, that the Spaniards, wary of what might happen in Naples, adopted, or at least intensified, the policy described by Doria. The Flemish were left unscathed by the Spanish policy of divide and conquer simply because it was imposed too late to affect them, possibly as a result of their victory. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 843

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the Croce vs. Doria debate over whether Spanish policy causally produced southern Italy’s conditions — a key scholarly fork in explaining Mafia origins.
• CANDY: The causal-timing argument — the same Spanish policy ‘worked’ on Naples because applied early, but arrived too late for Flanders — is a crisp, discussable one-liner.