Mafia Infiltration and Political Participation

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.