Mafia Politics 1st Edition
-75%
Availability: In Stock

Mafia Politics 1st Edition

SKU: 9781509545827

Original price was: $23.00.Current price is: $5.75.

Access Mafia Politics 1st Edition Now. Discount up to 90%

Categories: ,

Additional information

Full Title

Mafia Politics 1st Edition
Author(s)

Marco Santoro
Edition

1st Edition
ISBN

9781509545827, 9780745670676, 9780745670683
Publisher

Polity
Format

PDF and EPUB

Description

This ground-breaking book offers a deep and original analysis of the Mafia – in particular Cosa Nostra – as a distinct form of politics. Marco Santoro breaks with criminal and economic approaches which see the Mafia as an industry of private protection and rationally calculating wealth accumulation. Instead he argues that it represents an alternative way of organizing political relations, the exercise of power, and the struggle for prestige. Nor is this a distortion or failure of the modern Western state, based on the rule of law: the Mafia is best understood as an older, alternative tradition of politics, a distinctly Southern institutional arrangement of social life focused on personal ties and obligations. Today, the Mafia still thrives among subaltern classes and in regions that the modern state has not yet incorporated, as a conservative counter-politics of prestige. Pivotal to understanding this world is a cultural sociology of the Mafia, offering the tools and concepts necessary to penetrate the symbolism and structures of Mafia life.

Blending diverse theoretical strands with folk sources and the voices of Mafiosi themselves, Santoro develops a political theory of the Mafia, shedding new light on this captivating, global, and remarkably resilient phenomenon.

Related products