Anti-Mafia Policies in Italy: The Need for Collaborative Governance and Transition of the Policy Actors from Isolation to Coalition

Abstract

First paragraph: This article puts forth two main arguments. The first aim of this article is to simplify and classify the actors in the field of anti-mafia policies. Recently, classification of anti-mafia movements in Italy has been divided into direct and indirect policies through a methodology-based approach for implementation of these policies, which should be complementary to each other. While this article agrees that classification of direct and indirect policies and their being complementary is important to having a coherent policy, this study argues that direct and indirect policies should be categorized according to an actor-based approach rather than a method-based one. Moreover, focusing solely on these two categorizations could be misleading unless the routes of direct and indirect anti-mafia policies during deployment are described. Thus, after distinguishing direct and indirect policy features, the article will argue that the direction of implementation is also significant, whether top-todown (top-down) or bottom-to-top (bottom-up), according to the initiative, the intervening actors, and target group of these actors. Finally, it is noted that direct or indirect policies that are oriented either top-down or bottom-up are like the parts of a chain, so both direct and indirect policies should have equal importance and should all be perceived equally influential in the construction of anti-mafia policies.