Mafia Infiltration and Political Participation

Abstract This paper investigates whether mafia infiltration episodes may affect citizens’ participation in the electoral process of local administrations. Using a novel dataset that combines information on city council dissolutions and voter turnout in local elections of municipalities located in southern Italy for the period 1991–2020, we show that the negative informational shock provided by mafia infiltration episodes decreases the participation rate by margin of about 2 % points. We also find that this effect is persistent in time. We show that the effect is homogeneous across locations but not over time. Finally, we document a spillover effect in neighboring municipalities, showing that the participation rate in local elections decreases by a margin of 1 % point.