The Resilience of the Russian mafia: An Empirical Study

Abstract Criminal organizations constantly face challenges that threaten their existence. This paper discusses the effects that state repression and state transformation have on criminal organizations and how such organizations respond. We focus on the case of the Russian mafia, known as the vory-v-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of criminology 2021-01, Vol.61 (1), p.143-166
Main Authors: Varese, Federico, Lonsky, Jakub, Podvysotskiy, Yuriy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CRIMINAL OFFENDERS
Criminals
CRIMINOLOGY
ECONOMY
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Mafia
ORGANISED CRIME
Resilience (Personality trait)
RULE OF LAW
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Summary:Abstract Criminal organizations constantly face challenges that threaten their existence. This paper discusses the effects that state repression and state transformation have on criminal organizations and how such organizations respond. We focus on the case of the Russian mafia, known as the vory-v-zakone. We identify the key challenges faced by the vory throughout Soviet and Russian history and examine how the Russian mafia adapted to such threats. We conclude that the biggest threat came not from state repression during Stalin’s Great Terror but rather from state transformation in the 1990s. We also show that Putin’s era repression of the vory has not been more intense than that of the late Yeltsin’s years. The paper is based on a new and unique data set we constructed, which contains biographical information of more than 5,000 members of the vory fraternity.
ISSN:0007-0955
1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/azaa053