Making sense of mafia in Turkey: conceptual framework and a preliminary evaluation

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to make sense of mafia and make sense of mafia in Turkey. The discussions are limited to racketeering. That is, smuggling is not included. The arguments are developed on a conceptual level and reflected to Turkey. As a specific concept in criminology, mafia or organized crime points at an organization accruing illegal gains through a multiplicity of crimes, using threat or violence. Departing from the criticisms of this conceptualization, in this dissertation, it is argued that white-collar or corporate crime should not be taken as distinct, and the slim line of intersection betweenpolitical economy and criminology should not bedisregarded. That is, committing a profit-oriented crime, mafia is not independent of the 'place of economy in society' and the state-business relations shaped therein. This is especially important in the context of neoliberal economic transformation, within which mafia, as a metaphor of reciprocity relations aiming at illicit gain on the borders of the legal economy, stigmatized by the economic transformation process itself, unless the rise of the market economy is restrained with a redistributive state and rule of law. With respect to Turkey, first, the rare lines of knowledge on mafia are discussed. By and large, the works of legal scholars and criminologists are in line with the orthodox definition, and share the same shortcomings. The mafia metaphor is introduced with outlining the neoliberal economic transformation in the post-1980 period, and exemplified with the transformation of the "kabadayı", so-called "Civangate" and Turkbank privatization.