Mafia, elections and violence against politicians

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Daniele, Gianmarco; Dipoppa, Gemma
• 署名单位: University of Barcelona; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.08.004
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 10-33
• 关键词: Organized crime; political violence; ELECTIONS; rent seeking

摘要

Organized crime uses political violence to influence politics in a wide set of countries. This paper exploits a novel dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence against them. We test two complementary theories to predict the use of violence i) before elections, to affect the electoral outcome; and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election in areas with a high presence of organized crime, especially when elections result in a change of local government. (C) 2017 Elsevier S.V. All rights reserved.