Mafiocracy I: Organized Crime in Government and Government as Organized Crime

Our panel highlights various ways that organized crime can capture governments, whether they be mafia-style groups controlling government, or corrupt networks in government acting like organized criminals. Our objective is to expose the challenges that anti-corruption organizations and authorities face in contexts of “mafiocracy” and the importance of pro-rule-of-law networks that incorporate anti-corruption, anti-organized crime, and anti-money laundering. Bonnie Palifka examines empirically the relationships among corruption, organized crime, and money laundering, with an emphasis on mafia-style groups. Louise Shelley, in contrast, studies how the Russian state has been captured by Putin and his cronies, converting the government into a kleptocracy that suppresses opposition through violence, just as mafia-style groups do. Finally, Robert Rotberg describes an intermediate case: African states that have been captured to varying degrees by economically powerful networks.