Zora L. Hauser’s Mafia Expansion: The ‘Ndrangheta in Established Democracies is a timely and welcome addition to the literature on criminal mobility. By focusing on the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, which she identifies as ‘the most elusive Italian mafia’ (p. 39), Hauser directly challenges the long-held assumption that these criminal entities are confined to the precarious democracies and distinct cultural milieus of southern Italy. Her central research question – ‘how and why mafias expand across borders and how they operate in contexts different from those they originated in’ (p. 2) – guided her seven-year research into the group’s presence in Germany and Switzerland, with the aim of building an empirical theory to inform policy.
As someone who has been researching criminal mobility since 2010, I was curious to see where Hauser would position herself in the academic debate. As a researcher whose material has led me in a completely different direction from the Oxbridge school of Mafia studies established by Diego Gambetta (1993), Federico Varese (2006, 2011, 2020) and Paolo Campana (2011, 2013), who adopt a rational choice approach to mafias, I was intrigued to see the theoretical framework and the methodology that Hauser would use.
Hauser’s research is a direct continuation of this tradition, building upon Varese’s ‘transplantation’ theory and Campana’s ‘functional diversification’ theory. These frameworks privilege a view of mafias as rational business suppliers of private protection that establish ‘outposts’, ‘branches’ and ‘outlets’, rather than considering them as more complex crime systems that combine enterprise structures with territorial and social control.
From this foundation, Hauser develops her central theoretical contribution: a ‘mafia expansion continuum’ for established democracies. This model builds on Varese’s and Campana’s key concepts of ‘governance’ (‘governance-type expansion’), where mafias provide protection services in the Italian homeland, and ‘trade’ (‘trade-type expansion’), where they focus solely on buying and selling illicit goods abroad. Hauser’s novel addition to this schema is her category of ‘hibernation’, which she defines as ‘a prolonged period of inactivity by an outpost’ (p. 222).
This concept is intriguing and addresses a valid point: the need to understand not only successful mafia mobility but also the conditions under which it fails. However, the ‘hibernation’ thesis is also problematic. Hauser raises numerous questions about its purpose and mechanics, ultimately concluding that these dormant cells represent a ‘lesser threat’ (p. 217) but still a potential supply of mafiosi. An analogy to a terrorist sleeper cell? Perhaps, but so very different. If these mafia groups are truly inactive, ultimately they risk losing their mafia features and dissipating. So, to argue and return to the Gambettian position that the mere presence of mafiosi means that there can be a real demand for criminal protection requires more robust evidence and analysis, I believe.
The book is coherently structured, with the main thesis flowing logically through seven chapters. Hauser provides detailed case studies of clans’ expansion in Germany and Switzerland, a very impressive feat given the scarce institutional sources (in particular, German judicial and police documents). The challenge is significant, as ‘mafia association’ is not a crime in Germany and cross-border police collaboration can be difficult. While she supplements this with over 50 interviews, mainly of prosecutors and police officers, a broader ethnographic methodological approach could have further strengthened her analysis.
Her empirical work presents three distinct ‘Ndrangheta behaviours, effectively demonstrating the fluidity of mafia activity abroad: the Farao clan with its ‘governance-type’ behaviour, which seeks to control markets and influence politics; the Erfurt group and its ‘trade-type’ behaviour; and the Lake Constance group, which ‘hibernates’. These case studies usefully underline the plurality of mafia mobility forms that can coexist in parallel abroad and their continued link to their territory of origin.
Hauser concludes that her case studies validate her deductive approach, arguing that mafias can move and expand abroad but some are less successful. In doing so, she posits, ‘they might lose their specificity as mafias and become ordinary forms of organized crime’ (p. 219). But, the presence and activities of mafia members and clans abroad are not as clear cut as this, with mafiosi, mafia money or sponsored front companies circulating freely to do business.
Despite its great empirical detail, the book has several limitations, among which the lack of critical engagement with the very theories it employs, presenting them as ‘widely accepted’ (p. 15) without sufficient scrutiny of, for example, Putnam’s work. A more insightful analysis might have reflected on other existing criminal mobility approaches as well as question whether the established frameworks she uses had theoretical limitations that her new evidence could have exposed.
This lack of critical depth is particularly evident in her treatment of mafia–political relations. Hauser expresses worry that she ‘unearthed’ proximity between the ‘Ndrangheta, society and institutions in Germany and Switzerland, a relationship she thought ‘impossible to find in contexts of democratic stability’ (p. 226). But if mafias are also understood as having an inherent political dimension, as argued by Armao (2003), then the attempted pursuit of political connections via their businessmen friends abroad – whether in Germany, Spain, or elsewhere – is a rather predictable strategy. Established democracies, with their exploitative economies and porous electoral systems, have long been fertile ground for such infiltration.
Ultimately, while Mafia Expansion is an interesting contribution, it offers only a partial picture. It successfully confirms that universalism is impossible when studying Italian mafias abroad; there is no one-size-fits-all model. Indeed, to a certain extent Hauser’s book not so much confirms the different theories she tests but reveals the complex reality of mafia mobility. Each mafia and new territory needs to be understood and analysed within its historical and cultural contexts as they evolve and change over time. A recent case judged in Marseille, involving a third generation French Calabrian and long-time resident of the Riveria, who was convicted for drug trafficking, with traces of money laundering and political links, defies Hauser’s neat categorisation because ultimately mafia mobility is messy, often random and multidimensional, depending on the specific clan, its territory of origin and its interconnectedness with its new territory.
