Marco Santoro. Mafia Politics. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022)

When one speaks of the ‘mafia’ in a widespread manner, one finds an established conceptual and theoretical repertoire in circulation. In contrast to familiar perspectives, it is an unconventional thesis to claim that the mafia has its own ‘politics’ like a ‘state’. In other words, it can be said that in the relevant literature, a political-theoretical thesis based on the notion that the mafia is a political structure has not been systematically treated. In a way, when we talk about ‘politics’, we cannot limit politics to a specific field or to the idea of a specific state. As such, one can speak of many political fields. The mafia phenomenon can also be considered in this context. However, to say that the mafia has a politics does not necessarily mean that it has a structure similar to the politics of the modern, legitimate-legal state. Moreover, claiming that the mafia has a political nature like a state does not necessarily mean that the actions of a structure whose name has always been associated with evil and violence are legitimate. However, to say that the mafia is also a political structure is to emphasise that mafia-organised crime networks have a risky, dangerous and relatively long-lasting structure that deserves much more attention. In this context, the Italian sociologist Marco Santoro's Mafia Politics (2022), with its innovative and daring perspective, is an impressive and stimulating contribution to the literature on the mafia. The main thesis of the book is that the mafia is more important than its specific political roles. The main thesis of the book is based on the idea that the mafia should be understood not only in terms of its specific political roles, but also as a politically institutionalised structure. This review aims to clarify certain aspects of the author's meta-theoretical perspective on the mafia phenomenon.