Governance and trade: Mafias’ multifunctional violence in Italian drug markets

Systemic violence is a structural feature of drug economies and a key spillover of prohibitionist drug policies. Despite its centrality, the concept is often applied in ways that obscure its distinct purposes, market levels, and organizational contexts. To address this gap, the study examines violence at the intersection of mafia activity and drug markets, focusing on its distribution across market levels (retail, national wholesale, transnational), organizational functions (governance and trade), and rivalry configurations (inter-, intra-, and extra-clan). It draws on a press-based dataset of mafia-related homicides in Italy (2014–2024) to code and analyze these dynamics. Results show that more than half of all mafia homicides are drug-related, mainly tied to governance activities and concentrated at the retail level of the market. This pattern marks a qualitative shift in mafia violence: increasingly selective, embedded in market dynamics, confined to criminal circuits. Statistical analyses reveal significant associations between activity type, market level, and rivalry configuration, indicating that coercion concentrates where regulatory control and market participation intersect. This pattern underscores the multifunctional nature of Italian mafias, which govern markets from within while actively engaging in trade. By grounding this overlap empirically, the study advances theoretical debates on organized crime’s role in shaping illicit economies. It also offers a replicable framework for analyzing drug-related violence in the absence of official statistics.