State ambivalence rather than collusion drives mafia violence against officials.
Evidence
Paradoxically, had there been a consistently acquiescent attitude on the part of the state, had the state invariably chosen to bargain with the mafia, de facto acknowledging its semilegal status—enjoyed, for instance, by the yakuza in Japan—the mafia would not have been so violent. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 29
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the Schelling credible-commitments frame: the state’s inconsistent enforcement creates unstable equilibria that escalate violence, paralleling the reader’s core project of state failure to third-party enforcement.