An incisive look at the state's failures in Sicily and the rise of the mafia in Italy.

Sicily has long been seen as an island whose people are plagued by
governmental failings and general social disintegration, as well as the
home of the mafia. In Village Politics and the Mafia in Sicily Filippo Sabetti 
examines more than two hundred years of political economy to show that
many of Sicily's problems are of more recent origin. 

They are not due to a lack of civic tradition but to a structure of basic social 
institutions that impeded rather than facilitated self-governance. He suggests 
that the mafia emerged only in some parts of Sicily and was never a single 
overarching criminal organization. 

It arose, in fact, from a self-help tradition that eventually became corrupted 
and ultimately a burden on most villagers – land workers and proprietors alike.

The local antimafia forces also became a drain on village life and by the middle 
of the 1950s both the mafia and the antimafia, far from destroying one another, 
had vanquished themselves.

The first study to extend rational choice institutionalism to Italian history and
politics, Village Politics and the Mafia in Sicily offers anin-depth analysis of the 
impact of the abolition of feudalism in 1812, the unification of Italy in 1860, 
and subsequent regime changes on village politics in Sicily. Sabetti details the 
emergence, evolution, and collapse of a local mafia and antimafia  in a historical, 
"before-after," perspective. Refocusing the study of village politics and the mafia,
he also suggests what can happen when those acting for the state regard ordinary
people as passive voices in the game of life.

Reviews of the first edition:
"Sabetti's revolutionary analysis shakes up the conventional wisdom,
calls into question acquired knowledge  thought to be unassailably true
forever, and forces us all to rethink the history of Sicily and the mafia."
Saverio Di Bella, University of Messina Center for the Study of  Mafia
Criminality

"An important study. Sabetti successfully challenges a number of
well-entrenched assumptions about Sicilian and southern Italian
politics."International Journal of Comparative Sociology

"An informative and detailed analysis of a single, small village in central
Sicily ... The primary data used by Sabetti are quite varied and more
complete than any other book on the subject. He has made excellent use
of the literature. But it is the idea, the imagination of the work that is
even more impressive for it actually explains the currents of authority."
International Migration Review

Filippo Sabetti, professor of political science at McGill University, is
the author of The Search for Good Government: Understanding the Paradox of
Italian Democracy. http://www.mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1253

November 2002     6 x 9    288pp
Paper    0-7735-2475-4    $29.95 (Cdn.)        $24.95 (US)
£18.95 (UK)

From: Sylvie O'halloran [mailto:sylvie.ohalloran@mcgill.ca]