La polizia e la mafia in Sicilia: cogestione, collusione e ragion di stato, 1866-1875. (The Police and the Mafia in Sicily: collusion, co-management, and raison d’état, 1866-1875.)

My research focuses on one of the first important instances in which the Italian state and Mafia gangs established some kind of cooperation aimed at managing public order in Palermo after Italian unification. Specifically my thesis examines the time period between 1866 and 1875. During this period we can find public accusations and confidential reports that describe a system based on the interaction between State actors and Mafiosi or criminals in general. The entire police, judiciary, and government apparatus of the Italian State seems have been involved. The central government itself was aware of this system and allowed it. The type of exchange that took place between the parties was so consistent and coordinated that can be viewed as a "system of co-management at a high level". Therefore, it is the first case of wide-ranging transactions with criminal groups and Mafiosi to occur after Italian unification. This system was born for specific reasons and it developed due to local, national, and European contingencies and needs. Safeguarding public order was perceived as a fundamental condition for protecting Italian Unity that had just been achieved. The Palermo uprising of 1866 had triggered fears, among the Italian political elites, that the country would disintegrate. My research aims at revealing the roots, goals, evolution, and consequences of this system. The choices made in the 1860s would have had repercussions in Palermo and in Italy for the rest of that century and created the conditions for further collusion between the institutions and the Mafia. The analysis of this first compromise that the Italian State put into operation with the Sicilian Mafia is also beneficial for understanding exchanges between institutions and the Mafia that are a constant in Mafia history.