Sublethal sanctions suffice in principle, yet mafia violence stays pervasive

Evidence

Exactly why “Peppe” resorts so frequently to violence, however, is not easy to establish. Not all punishments are violent, and often force is used as nothing more than an implicit threat in the bargaining process. Nonetheless, conflict escalates into violence in Sicily with notorious frequency, a fact that is remarkable not on empirical grounds, given what we know of mafia practices, but in terms of theoretical expectations. The range of possible sanctions which fall short of violence would seem sufficient to relegate the use of force to the background and still allow the supply of effective protection. If any evolution can be detected in legal economic affairs it is coward subtle contractual forms which exclude the threat of violence to deter defectors. Commercial defeat and physical defeat are increasingly divergent. If the mafia could offer protection without undue recourse to violence, it would seem rational to do so, as the corresponding risks and costs should be fewer. So why is it, then, that violence features so prominently in the career and reputation of a mafioso? Why are mafia groups traditionally so militarized? — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 106

Categorization

• QUESTION: Gambetta poses the central puzzle — why militarization persists when cheaper nonviolent sanctioning looks rational — which the rest of the chapter presumably answers. Worth chasing: the answer (honor/violence as commodity advertising) likely recurs throughout.
• XREF: The ‘why so much violence when subtle sanctions would do’ puzzle parallels Milgrom’s finding that formal institutions emerged to make reputation systems cheap — Gambetta’s open puzzle is the foil to that institutional solution.