As you probably know already, Italy isn’t exactly the only country with an organized crime problem. Movies and TV Shows about the mafia such as “Scarface”, “The Godfather”, and “Gomorrah” have portrayed the Italian mobs – both southern Italian and American incarnations.
But in reality, these pop culture portrayals only tend to romanticize a very dangerous phenomenon, that’s in fact all too real for those whose lives it really affects. What TV and movies have managed to get right is the idea that Italy’s criminal networks have enough power to threaten the government.
According to the country’s first-ever survey focused on political violence, Italy suffered from 1,191 violent attacks against different politicians between 2013 and 2015. The count was undertaken by the Italian nonprofit organization Avviso Pubblico and was culled from local news stories and first-hand accounts.
A brand new paper from the Journal of Public Economics analyzed in detail this new survey.
