How, why and with what consequences do mafias take root in contexts that are very different from those they originate from? The mafia organisations that exist today have emerged in very specific settings and at crucial historic junctures, such as the end of Italian feudalism or the fall of the Soviet Union. Over time, however, they have taken root around the globe, including in some of the richest and seemingly most stable countries. Previous studies have argued that the likelihood of mafia emergence and resilience revolves around the ability and willingness of the state to govern effectively in contexts of social disaggregation, economic backwardness, chronic distrust and uncertainty. If this is so, why do most established democracies, including the United States, Australia and nearly all European countries, struggle with mafia expansion into their territories?
This talk challenges established ideas on mafia expansion. It examines the expansion of the Calabrian mafia to Germany, providing the first in-depth account of one of the most elusive yet most widely spread mafias in the world. In doing so, it shows that three common assumptions about mafia expansion are untrue. Specifically, it demonstrates that mafia expansion is not an inevitable consequence of migration; that the phenomenon is not intrinsically and exclusively linked to diaspora dynamics; and that so-called strong states are not a guarantee against mafia entrenchment. Based on extensive fieldwork and a wide range of hard-to-reach primary sources, such as intercepts, confidential police reports, and archival data, the paper contributes to the scholarship on extra-legal governance, trust, migration, and the overlaps between the legal and illegal realms more generally.
Zora Hauser is a researcher at Nuffield College and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, where she obtained her doctorate. In her work, Zora investigates informal and criminal power structures with a focus on dynamics of trust and violence. Her first book, titled “Mafia Expansion: How the ‘Ndrangheta Came to Germany”, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press (2024). During her DPhil, Zora contributed to the University of Cambridge’s Partnership for Conflict, Crime & Security Research (PaCCS). She holds an MA in International Relations and a BA in Political Science from LUISS University, Rome. Her work has been featured on Sky News, CNN, in Der Spiegel, the FAZ, and the Swiss Broadcasting Group (SRF), among others. Based on her research, Zora has given evidence in front of the first parliamentary inquiry into Italian mafias in German history and briefed police forces around Europe.
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