Red Mafia 9781405165518

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Red Mafia PENG WANG University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The term “red mafia” has been increasingly used by researchers in the field of organized crime and corruption, but no consensus has been made on what it means. Russian criminologists use “red mafia” to refer to Russian organized crime groups in general or organized crime groups in the postSoviet context. Chinese criminologists, however, define “red mafia” as groups or networks of corrupt Communist Party members who earn illicit profits, mainly from abusing public office and selling protection. Completely different understandings of what the red mafia is and how it works hinders theoretical and empirical advancement. This entry discusses conceptual ambiguity and confusion in the literature and offers recommendations for future research directions.

“Red Mafia” as Russian Organized Crime Groups Over past decades, sociologists and criminologists have tended to regard the mafia and organized crime groups as the same phenomenon, and do not make a distinction between them when they study criminal organizations. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a group of researchers paid great attention to the origin and development of organized crime groups during Russia’s transition to a market economy (see Varese, 2001; Volkov, 2002). In order to distinguish the Russian mafia from other long-standing mafias (e.g., the Sicilian mafia and Hong Kong triads), Russian researchers generated a new term “red mafia” because the color red is traditionally associated with communism. The term “red mafia,” therefore, is used to indicate Russian or post-Soviet organized crime groups in general. For example, Anderson (1995: 33) argues that “the term ‘mafia’ has been adopted internationally, most recently in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Russians

refer, for example, to the Red Mafia.” Similarly, in Organized Crime, Prison and Post-Soviet Societies (2003), Oleinik regards “Red Mafia” as “clandestine criminal organizations” in the post-Soviet context, and this definition is identical with how researchers define “the mafia” in Italy. A lack of clear distinction between the mafia and organized crime groups is, however, problematic, because how the mafia and organized crime groups are defined “goes a long way toward determining how laws are framed, how investigations are conducted, [and] how research studies are done” (Finckenauer, 2005: 68). In order to address “what is organized crime,” University of Oxford criminologist Federico Varese conducts the content analysis of 115 definitions used in academic and official documents and makes a definite distinction between the mafia and organized crime groups. According to Varese (2010), “an organized crime group attempts to regulate and control the production and distribution of a given commodity or service unlawfully” (p. 14), while “a Mafia group is a type of organized crime group that attempts to control the supply of protection” (p. 17). Varese’s distinctive definitions have been widely accepted by organized crime scholars.

“Red Mafia” as Corrupt Public Officials in China In The Chinese Mafia (2017), Peng Wang investigates how to define the Chinese mafia and why it is resurgent in post-Mao China. Wang identifies two types of mafia co-existing in contemporary China: black mafia and red mafia. Black mafia refers to local criminal groups who derive their main source of income from supplying extralegal protection and quasi-law enforcement; while red mafia refers to groups or networks of corrupt public officials who sell protection for illicit profits. “Red,” as Wang (2017: 12) argues, is “not only the symbolic colour of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but also the colour of all public officials, because the CCP monopolizes the four branches of government (legislative, executive, judicial, and military).”

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer and Chris Rojek. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeos1339

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RED MAFIA

The mafia, according to Gambetta (1993), is an industry that produces, sells and distributes protection, guarantees and enforcement. Wang (2017) also mentions that protection is the key commodity that the red mafia produces and sells, but offers a broader understanding of “protection” that also includes corrupt benefits obtained through abusing public office. Protection services supplied by upper-level officials to lower-ranking officials include covering up their wrongdoing and ensuring their promotion regardless of formal procedures and rules (Wang, 2016). The services provided by public officials to local gangs include safeguarding their illegal businesses and enabling them to escape punishment (Chin and Godson, 2006; Wang, 2013). Corrupt public officials also sell protection to businesspeople who would have the privilege of accessing state-controlled resources and could employ their political connections to safeguard their illegal/immoral interests (Wedeman, 2003). In transitional countries where corruption is rampant, state agencies and public officials can be the primary suppliers of extralegal protection. Taking China as an example, a hierarchical relationship between police officers (red mafia) and gang bosses (black mafia) has been widely established in different provinces and cities: Senior police officers distribute promotion opportunities to their loyal subordinates (lower-ranking officers) and turn a blind eye to their illegal businesses, which include safeguarding illegal entrepreneurs and gang bosses in the underground economy; entrepreneurs and gang bosses protected by the police become key market actors in the criminal underworld (Wang, 2017). The term “red mafia,” further developed by Wang (2017), can be understood as the mechanism of state-illegal protection and enforcement: units of state agencies and government officials acting as private entrepreneurs who gain illicit profits primarily through abusing power and selling protection (see also Volkov, 2002). In a global context, the term “state-illegal protection mechanism” may work better than “red mafia.” This is because the term “red mafia” only refers to groups of corrupt officials in communist countries who regard the provision of private protection as their main source of income, while the term “state-illegal protection mechanism” includes state officials and state agencies that

engage in the business of private protection in any country or region.

Future Directions in Research The existing literature focuses on the causal relationship between state failure and mafia emergence and examines the role of mafia groups in supplying private protection in both legal and illegal markets (see Gambetta, 1993; Chu, 2000; Varese, 2001; Hill, 2003). Relatively little research, however, has been done to analyze and understand the role of state agencies and state functionaries in producing and selling private protection. The involvement of corrupt officials in the provision of extralegal protection may be an essential research topic for scholars who study the crimes of the powerful, an emerging field of research. In contrast with mafia groups that employ the use, or threat of use, of organized violence when they sell protection and guarantee exchanges, state agencies and public officials produce extralegal protection by employing a more peaceful and hidden strategy – abusing office without resorting to violence. Despite its low profile, the state-illegal protection mechanism produces harmful and serious forms of damage to individuals and society. Social scientists, therefore, need to extend their research interests to encompass this type of protection and enforcement mechanism and theoretically and empirically investigate why it emerges, how it works, and how it can be curbed. A comparative approach, examining state-illegal protection in different political systems as well as comparing state-illegal protection with mafia protection, is also appealing.

SEE ALSO: Corruption; Crime; Crime, Corporate; Crime, Organized; Crime, Political References Anderson, A. (1995) Organised crime, mafia and governments, in The Economics of Organised Crime (ed. G. Fiorentini and S. Peltzman), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 33–53.

RED MAFIA Chin, K. and Godson, R. (2006) Organized crime and the political–criminal nexus in China. Trends in Organized Crime, 9 (3), 5–44. Chu, Y.K. (2000) The Triads as Business, Routledge, London. Finckenauer, J.O. (2005) Problems of definition: what is organized crime? Trends in Organized Crime, 8 (3), 63–83. Gambetta, D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Hill, P.B. (2003) The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Oleinik, A. (2003) Organized Crime, Prison and PostSoviet Societies, Ashgate, Aldershot. Varese, F. (2001) The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Varese, F. (2010) Organized Crime, Routledge, London. Volkov, V. (2002) Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. Wang, P. (2013) The rise of the red mafia in China: a case study of organised crime and corruption in Chongqing. Trends in Organized Crime, 16 (1), 49–73. Wang, P. (2016) Military corruption in China: the role of guanxi in the buying and selling of military positions. The China Quarterly, 228, 970–991. Wang, P. (2017) The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Wedeman, A.H. (2003) From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China, Cambridge University Press, New York.