Mafia state
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term mafia state is a political buzzword to describe a state system where the government is tied with organized crime, including when government officials, police, and/or military take part in illicit enterprises. The term mafia is a reference to any organized crime groups strongly connected with the authorities.
According to the critics of the mafia state concept, the term "has now been so used and abused in popularized descriptions of organized criminal activity that it has lost much of its analytic value".
The term may also be used in a positive sense, and be used to describe a political system in which the government has been replaced by organized crime. This concept has been used in some libertarian fiction, such as the novel The Syndic, which Samuel Edward Konkin III, the creator of agorism, referred to as an under appreciated classic.
According to US diplomats, defector Alexander Litvinenko coined the phrase "mafia state."
See also
Related concepts
- Counterintelligence state
- Police state
- Narco-state
- Failed state
- Terrorist state
- North Korea's illicit activities
- Kleptocracy
