In politics, a mafia state is a state system where the government is tied with organized crime to the degree when government officials, the police, and/or military became a part of the criminal enterprise.Mafia States: Organized Crime Takes Office by Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs. According to US diplomats, the expression "mafia state" was coined by Alexander Litvinenko.
Particular applications of the concept
Mafia in Italy and Yakuza in Japan
In a critical review of Moisés Naím's essay in Foreign Affairs, Peter Andreas pointed to the long existence of the Italian mafia and Japanese Yakuza, writing that there were close relationships between those illicit organisations and respective governments. According to Andreas, these examples speak against incidences of mafia states as a historically new threat.
In Italy, three main mafia organisations originated in the 19th century: the Cosa Nostra originating from the region of Sicily, the Camorra originating from the region of Campania, and the 'Ndrangheta originating from the region of Calabria.
Former Prime Minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti, had legal action against him, with a trial for mafia association on 27 March 1993 in the city of Palermo. The prosecution accused the former prime minister of "[making] available to the mafia association named Cosa Nostra for the defense of its interests and attainment of its criminal goals, the influence and power coming from his position as the leader of a political faction". Prosecutors said in return for electoral support of Salvo Lima and assassination of Andreotti's enemies, he had agreed to protect the Mafia, which had expected him to fix the Maxi Trial. Andreotti's defense was predicated on character attacks against the prosecution's key witnesses, who were themselves involved with the mafia. Andreotti was acquitted on 23 October 1999. However, together with the greater series of corruption cases of Mani pulite, Andreotti's trials marked the purging and renewal of Italy's political system.
The Camorra Casalesi clan rose in the 1980s, gaining control of large areas of the local economy "partly by manipulating politicians and intimidating judges". The clan was heavily involved in the Naples waste management crisis that dumped toxic waste around Campania in the 1990s and 2000s; the boss of the clan, Gaetano Vassallo, admitted to systematically working for 20 years to bribe local politicians and officials to gain their acquiescence to dumping toxic waste.
Countries described as mafia states
Former Yugoslavia
Serbia is often regarded as "captured state", with even sliding further into a state "wherein the line between ruling elites and criminal groups has grown completely blurred," to the point that it "fits the bill" of a mafia state.
Kosovo, a partially recognised break-away state from Serbia, was called a "mafia state" by Italian MEP Pino Arlacchi in 2011, and also by Moisés Naím in his 2012 essay "Mafia States" in Foreign Affairs.
Naím also labeled Montenegro as a "mafia state" in the same essay, describing it as a hub for cigarette smuggling.
Transnistria
Transnistria, an unrecognised break-away state from Moldova, has long been described by journalists, researchers, politicians and diplomats as a quasi-state whose economy is dependent on contraband and gunrunning, with some having directly referred to Transnistria as a mafia state.
For instance, in 2002, Moldova's president, Vladimir Voronin, called Transnistria a "residence of international mafia", "smuggling stronghold", and "outpost of Islamic combatants". Attempts of customs blockade followed the allegations. Reacting to the allegations, Russian state-run RTR aired an investigative program revealing that Transnistrian firms were conducting industrial-level manufacturing of small arms purposely for subsequent illegal trafficking via the Ukrainian port of Odesa. According to the program, the trade was controlled by and benefited from Transnistria's founder and then-ruler Igor Smirnov.
During the press conference on 30 November 2006, head of EUBAM Ferenc Banfi officially stated that organised smuggling of weapons in Transnistria did not exist.Fragment of EUBAM press-conference regarding Mission activities in 2004-2006 Transnistrian Customs Committee Press-Service. In 2013, Ukrainian Foreign Minister and acting chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Leonid Kozhara gave an interview to El País, commenting on the situation in Transnistria and results of work of the EUBAM mission. According to Kozhara, there have been no cases of arms traffic found.Queremos zonas de libre comercio tanto al Este como hacia el Oeste El Pais. 4 June 2013.
Some experts from Russia and Transnistria state that allegations of Transnistria being a "mafia state", "black hole of Europe", and "heaven for arms trafficking", etc. are a carefully planned defamation campaign paid by the Moldovan government and aimed at producing a negative image of Transnistria.Some aspects of administrative legal regime of customs activities of Transnistria in context of work of international monitoring missions Customs and Science. 12 May 2011. Officials from the European Union and the OSCE say they have no evidence that the Tiraspol regime has ever trafficked arms or nuclear material. Much of the alarm is attributed to efforts by the Moldovan government to increase pressure on Transnistria.Moldova: Western Diplomats Say Reports Of Smuggling From Transdniester Likely Exaggerated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. October 11, 2005.
Russia
The term has been used by slain Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko and media to describe the political system in Russia under Vladimir Putin's rule.Putin's Russia 'now a mafia state', BBCWikileaks: Russia branded 'mafia state' in cables, BBCBritish MPs paint scary picture of Putin's Russia, EUObserver This characterization came to prominence following the United States diplomatic cables leak, which revealed that US diplomats viewed Russia as "a corrupt, autocratic kleptocracy centred on the leadership of Vladimir Putin, in which officials, oligarchs and organised crime are bound together to create a 'virtual mafia state.'"WikiLeaks cables condemn Russia as 'mafia state', The Guardian In his book titled Mafia State, journalist and author Luke Harding argues that Putin has "created a state peopled by ex-KGB and FSB officers, like himself, [who are] bent on making money above all."Expelled Moscow correspondent claims Russia is mafia state, abc.net.au In the estimation of American diplomats, "the government [of Russia] effectively [is] the mafia."Below Surface, U.S. Has Dim View of Putin and Russia, The New York TimesRussia - Mafia State: It's important to tell the truth about Putin's Russia, CNNStephen Holmes, Fragments of a Defunct State, London Review of Books Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen has also described Russia as a "mafia state".
According to the New Statesman, "the term had entered the lexicon of expert discussion" several years before the cables leak, "and not as a frivolous metaphor. Those most familiar with the country had come to see it as a kleptocracy with Vladimir Putin in the role of capo di tutti capi, dividing the spoils and preventing turf wars between rival clans of an essentially criminal elite."Review: Mafia State, New Statesman In 2008, Stephen Blank noted that Russia under Putin is "a state that European officials privately call a Mafia state" that "naturally gravitates toward Mafia-like behavior."Stephen Blank (2008): What Comes After the Russo–Georgian War? What's at Stake in the CIS, American Foreign Policy Interests, 30:6, 379–391
Nikolay Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said "it's pretty hard to damage the Russian image in the world because it's already not very good".Russia’s "mafia state" image no disaster, euronews
The term pakhanate, created from the underworld slang, has also been used to describe Russia's political system.
Hungary
A 2001 article conducted an analysis of actions undertaken by Fidesz, the then newly established governing party in Hungary, which it deemed to be aimed at dismantling the institutional framework of the rule of law. This approach introduced novel concepts such as the 'organized over-world', the 'state employing mafia methods', and the 'adopted political family'. While initially met with skepticism by many, who regarded these concepts as metaphors rather than integral elements of a coherent framework, a significant shift occurred a decade later. In the 2010 elections, Fidesz secured a commanding two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Subsequently, both the party and the state itself came under the sway of a single individual, who adeptly applied techniques honed within the party to exert control over society at large. In a departure from the trajectory observed in other post-communist systems, where segments of the party and secret service assumed control over both political power and wealth, Fidesz, as a relative newcomer, aggressively reshaped the elite landscape to assert dominance.
The modus operandi of the post-communist mafia state revolves around concentrating power and wealth within the confines of the clan. However, unlike traditional mafia structures reliant on direct coercion, the mafia state achieves its objectives through ostensibly legitimate means such as parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax enforcement, police action, and utilization of secret services.
According to journalist Masha Gessen, in 2016, sociologist Bálint Magyar popularized the term "mafia state" to describe the administration of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Magyar argued that Orbán's method of taking power in Hungary, removing rivals and politicizing institutions for personal power, created a kind of regime known as a "mafia state". Magyar said that other states besides Hungary included Azerbaijan, Russia, and Kazakhstan as of 2016.
Mexico The scholar of Law and Economics Edgardo Buscaglia describes the political system of Mexico as a "Mafiacracy". Buscaglia characterises the condition between the state, the economy and organized crime in Mexico as a mutual interweaving,Die Zeit-Online: Interview with Edgardo Buscaglia (German-speaking Article) Mexico has also been labeled as a Narco-state (a political and economic term applied to countries where all legitimate institutions become penetrated by the power and wealth of the illegal drug trade).
Other Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez has also been evaluated as creating the conditions for President Nicolás Maduro to consolidate a "mafia state", according to political scientists in Policy Studies in 2021. Moisés Naím, Venezuelan writer and the author of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy, wrote in an article for the American magazine Foreign Policy in 2012: "In mafia states such as Bulgaria, Guinea-Bissau, Montenegro, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Venezuela, the national interest and the interests of organised crime are now inextricably intertwined."
During the 1990s, Aruba, an overseas constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was alleged to be a mafia state under then Prime Minister Henny Eman. The Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan was said to "own" over 60% of the island through investments in hotels, casinos, and donations towards Eman's election campaign. These claims later turned out to be exaggerated, however.The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba, Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1997 Arubaanse minister vertelt halve waarheid drugsmaffia, by Tom Blickman, Het Parool, October 15, 1997
In 2010, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had labelled Switzerland as a mafia state, stating that "Switzerland is behaving like a criminal organisation and it is involved in money laundering, assassinations and terrorism."