Società civile e 'ndrangheta. Il caso Reggio Calabria

The essay analyses the relationship between Calabrian civil society and the ‘ndrangheta from the late sixties to the present day. The reconstruction focuses on the Reggio Calabria region. The main thesis is that the relationship between ‘ndrangheta and civil society is not univocal but has three main characteristics : reaction against organized crime (antimafia); indifference to it; compliance with the criminal organizations interests. Therefore, the ‘ndrangheta cannot be considered as an external and opposed subject to civil society. The Calabrian mafia acts rather within civil society, triggering conflicting answers. In the specific case of the reaction against the ‘ndrangheta, the essay proposes a periodization that identifies the most acute phase of this phenomenon in the second half of the seventies and in the nineties. Moreover, the essay focuses on the way ‘ndrangheta changed its internal structure in the last fifty years. Such a transformation was one of the main causes of the first and second ‘ndrangheta wars (1974-1976; 1985-1991): a process which facilitated the involvement of organized crime in Calabrian civil society.