Utilising individual interviews and focus group discussions, primarily from two Chinese cities, The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection contributes to the understanding of organized crime and corruption in the Chinese context, filing a significant gap in criminological literature, by investigating how extra-legal protectors-corrupt public officials and street gangsters-emerge, evolve and operate in a rapidly changing society.
China's economic reforms have been accompanied by a surge of social problems, such as ineffective legal institutions, booming black markets and rampant corruption. This has resulted in the rise of extra-legal means of protection and enforcement: such is the demand for protection that cannot be fulfilled by state-sponsored institutions. This book develops a new socio-economic theory of mafia emergence, incorporating Granovetter's argument on social embeddedness into Gambetta's economic theory of the mafia, to suggest that the rise of the Chinese mafia is primarily due to the negative influence of guanxi (a Chinese version of personal connections) on the effectiveness of the formal legal system. This interplay has two major consequences. First, the weakened ability of the formal legal system sees street gangsters (the 'Black Mafia') providing protection and quasi law enforcement. Second, it allows for escalating abuse of power by public officials; as a result, corrupt officials (the 'Red Mafia') sell public appointments, exchange illegal benefits with businesses and protect local gangs. Together, these outcomes have seen street gangs shift their operations away from traditional areas (e.g. gambling, prostitution and drug distribution), whilst corrupt public officials have moved to offer illegal services to the criminal underworld, including the safeguarding organized crime groups and protection of illegal entrepreneurs.
A study of crime and deviance located within a fast growing economy, The Chinese Mafia offers a unique understanding of these activities within contemporary Chinese society and a new perspective for understanding the interaction between corruption and organized crime. It will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the fields of criminology and criminal justice, sociology, and political science, with particular interest for those researching China and Chinese politics and governance.
Author(s): Peng Wang
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: This book is based on a 2014 PhD thesis, no index, one illustration
Pages: 250
Tags: Law, Politics, Political Science, China, Mafia; Organized Crime, Corruption, Bribery, Prostitution, Smuggling, Trafficking, Gambling, Drug Dealing
Front Cover
© Peng Wang 2017
General Editors' Introduction
Acknowledgements
Permissions
Contents
PART I - Theory and History
1. Introduction
Socio-economic Studies of the Mafia
Organized Crime and the Mafia
An Economic Theory of the Mafia
The 'property-right theory of mafia emergence'
Mafia protection
The Embeddedness of Mafia Protection in Social Relations
Red Mafia and Black Mafia
The role of guanxi in facilitating the rise of extra-legal protectors
Contributions to Research
Methodology and Fieldwork
Research design
Challenges of fieldwork
Outline of This Book
2. Gangs as Pseudo-government
Chinese Secret Societies
Wars and the rise of secret societies
The Heaven and Earth Society
The Green Gang
The Red Gang
The formation of the Green-Red Gang in the late Qing dynasty
The Rise of the Shanghai Green Gang in the Republic of China (1912-1949)
Shanghai: the crime capital of China
Gang leaders as police officers
Green Gang's Internal Control
Coping with conflicts within the organization
Mitigating external uncertainties
Sanctions
The Shanghai Green Gang in Illegal Markets
Opium trade
Gambling
Links with Political and Business Elites
The Shanghai Green Gang and the Kuomintang
Legal fronts
Green Gang's Infiltration in Legal Markets
Banking
Shipping
Food supply
The Downfall of the Shanghai Green Gang
Conclusion
PART II - Extra-legal Protection in Contemporary China
3. Why the State Fails
Conflicts between Law and Guanxi
Establishing the Legal System for China's Economic Reform
Reform as a reassignment of property rights
Recognition of private property rights in China
The growing importance of China's legal system
The Changing Role of Guanxi in Contemporary China
Defining guanxi
Guanxi practice under the pre-reform system
Guanxi practice under economic reforms
Guanxi and the Legal System: Coexistence and Conflicts
Guanxi as a substitutive informal institution
Guanxi as a complementary informal institution
The embeddedness of corruption in guanxi networks
The effects of guanxi on judicial corruption
Conclusion
4. The Black Mafia
The Demand and Supply of Extra-legal Protection
Underground Police Organizations
Group structure
Soft violence and illegal services
The mechanism of emergence
The Provision of Hospital Security by Unlawful Protectors
Group structure
Illegal services and methodologies
The mechanism of emergence
The Role of Guanxi in Obtaining Extra-legal Protection
Coping with government officials' extortion
Solving the problem of being stalked
Enforcing loan repayment
Theoretical Implications
Soft violence
Corruption
Conclusion
5. The Red Mafia
The Buying and Selling of Military Positions
The lack of institutional means for career advancement
Informal practices
Political-Business Alliances
The Xishan Society
Corrupt business-politics nexus
The Role of Guanxi in Facilitating Corrupt Transactions
Conclusion
6. The Red-Black Collusion
The Chongqing Crime Crackdown
The Buying and Selling of Public Offices
Organized Crime in Chongqing
Structure
Activities
The Role of Guanxi in Building the Political-Criminal Nexus
Initiating guanxi
Building guanxi
Using guanxi
The importance of middlemen
Public Power as a Commodity
Conclusion
PART III - Conclusions and Reflections
7. The Mafia and the State
The Sicilian Model
The Chinese Model
The Black Mafia
The Red Mafia
Guanxi practice as a social evil
The Mafia and Politics
Implications for Research
8. China's War against Mafias
Anti-crime Campaigns
Xi's Anti-corruption Campaign
Severity, Swiftness, and Selectivity
Targeting Corrupt Guanxi Networks
Marginalizing the Rule of Law
Conclusion
Appendix I
The Green Gang's Ten Great Rules
The Green Gang's Ten Prohibitions
Appendix II
Interviews and Focus Group Discussions
Bibliography
