SOCI 048K. Political Sociology: The Mafia and the State

This course will introduce students to the comparative study of organizations designated as criminal across the globe. In it, we will explore the social, political and economic conditions in which what we designate organized crime develops. Analyses will be focused on the organization of networks, rules and codes, activities both in legitimate business and underground economies, and their relationship to politics. This comparative approach will enable students to identify those factors facilitating the emergence, migration and persistence of “organized crime” across nation states and global polities - emphasizing the mechanisms, processes and institutions that structure and are structured by these organizations. We will survey the major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of Mafias and similarly designated structures in Italy, Russia, China, Japan, Central Asia, Central and South America, Nigeria, the United States, and locally in Philadelphia.

Social sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for GLBL-core
Fall 2023. Johnson.
Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology

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