Crime also affects social cooperation, which must be defended

Interview with Antonio Vesco, coordinator and scientific director of the LIES research project on the links between crime and the third sector

In 2020, LIES, the Laboratory of Economic and Social Investigation, contacted Fondazione Finanza Etica to propose support for research on the relationship between social cooperation and crime, with the analysis of case studies in Veneto and Campania.

The issue of the connection between organized crime, Third Sector entities and finance has been a central issue for a long time. However, one of the interesting and connotative elements of this research, carried out together with the Department of Social Sciences of the Federico II University of Naples, the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin and the Documentation and Investigation Center on organized crime in Veneto, is the socio-anthropological slant. Both in terms of the methods (ethnography and direct observation) and in terms of the interpretative and theoretical keys adopted.

We talk about it with Antonio Vesco, coordinator and scientific director of the research project, together with Gianni Belloni.

Can you explain the reasons that led you to focus your research on the relationship between the criminal phenomenon - and not exclusively mafia - and the Third Sector?

In recent years, this relationship has been brought to light - and often emphasized - by some judicial cases that have received considerable media coverage. Above all, the "Middle World" investigation by the Rome Prosecutor's Office, later dubbed "Mafia Capitale" by the media. Despite considerable public attention, so far social research has paid very little attention to the links between organized crime, corruption and the social economy, or has done so "in passing", when it has dealt with the more general transformations of the third sector or the problems linked to some of its specific areas in which the presence of criminal groups has also manifested itself, from waste management to the various forms of assistance.

Our research is also not interested in crime itself. Rather, it aims to capture the fragility of a world, that of social cooperation and the entire third sector, which has undergone profound transformations in recent decades. We then asked ourselves which characteristics of the social economy can favor illegal dynamics; which gaps have opened up for the operations of criminal groups, both mafia and otherwise. At the same time, we have set ourselves a delicate objective: that of trying to identify the dynamics that contribute to the criminalization of non-profits in a phase in which some of its areas - such as that of the reception of asylum seekers - produce a highly polarized debate.

What is the characterizing element of the socio-anthropological nature of your research?

The socio-anthropological slant does not in fact only concern the techniques adopted or the sources used: we find it mostly in the gaze with which we observed these phenomena. The documents we analyzed, as well as the people we met and interviewed, did not represent simple sources of information for us. These are specific sources, which express specific points of view on the world. All our interviewees have a very specific role in the world of social cooperation and the third sector in general, we had to take this into account. Furthermore, it was a work that we can define as action research, attentive to the contribution and opinion of the people who live and work in this sector.

Have you already presented the data to the organizations you involved?

On the occasion of the return of the first results, at the Banca Etica headquarters in Padua, we involved many of the people met during the research. Discussing the results with them had two main functions, both fundamental for research of this type: first, to provide them with further knowledge about their own world and new tools for action. Secondly, re-interrogate our own knowledge in light of their feedback, so as to return to the results acquired and question them once again. It is a dialogue in which one must always keep in mind one's own positioning and that of one's interlocutors: a specific characteristic of anthropological research. It does not allow us to provide supposedly certain answers, but encourages detailed and in-depth reflection.

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Your research has chosen two relevant territories, Veneto and Campania. Territories that have very different practices of social cooperation, but also different ways of manifestation of organized crime. What emerges from your research?

In many ways, the choice of these two areas for our case studies depends precisely on the profound differences in context. We wanted to observe on the one hand the criminal tendencies of some cooperative realities in these two contexts; on the other, the difficulties encountered by managers and operators when faced with dynamics that favor these drifts. And we decided to do it in two significantly different areas, because the histories and traditions of volunteering and social cooperation in these two regions are different.

But the resulting widespread conceptions of the social are also different. The role played by politics in the local regulation of social policies and in their concrete implementation is different. Finally, the way in which public debate tends to conceptualize illegal or criminal deviations of society in the two areas is profoundly different. In the case of Veneto we rely on the key to understanding hypertrophic local entrepreneurship, which would also colonize the local social economy. When we look at Campania, we are more likely to refer to the factor of the mix between politics and the Camorra. An intertwining considered responsible for the degeneration of some local cooperative circuits. Research shows us that this is true up to a point.

There are also elements of continuity between the two contexts that emerge from our quantitative analyses. These factors have provided us with answers on economic crimes in the third sector and on the relationship between third sector bodies and the credit system. One of these is the greater presence of individuals reported for serious economic crimes in relatively large entities, as well as in "successful" cooperatives. Another is the scarcity of crimes directly attributable to mafia clans, which are essentially not detected in Veneto and which even in Campania appear to play a role of mere support for the activities of politicians and social entrepreneurs. This last data disproves the widespread idea that mafias are always at the center of illegal/criminal activities. Even in Campania, the subjects we have described are often self-sufficient compared to the local clans.

Do these data highlight a trend at a national level?

I believe the two trends just outlined can also be found elsewhere. However, some analyzes and information that we have collected through qualitative analysis are certainly generalizable. I'm not just talking about general and now well-established factors, such as the clear depoliticization of the Third Sector and the growing isomorphism with typical market dynamics. Or the loss of a strategy that also coincides with the generational change that has occurred in the management of many cooperatives. I am also thinking of very concrete and now easily observable mechanisms.

The loss of ties with the territory by many cooperatives, caused by the procurement system, favors cooperatives capable of operating in different territories, without taking into account their ability to build and develop networks of relationships with other local realities. The thresholds set by the procurement code effectively force small cooperatives to abandon competition in favor of more structured cooperatives that have no ties to the territory.

In this context, the increase in subcontracting thresholds opens up potential openings, throughout the national territory, for the entry of subjects who use the cooperative as a simple tool to access the works. Furthermore, in sectors such as the reception of applicants for international protection, the constant emergency that characterizes the concrete management of flows creates the conditions for entrusting the work to cooperatives capable of withstanding certain rhythms. Often to the detriment of regulations and the quality of the service provided.

In the case we investigated in Veneto, the Prefecture of Venice had established a privileged link with cooperatives that were later investigated for various crimes, while several small businesses with a long tradition of working in the hospitality field remained cut off.

A chapter of your work focuses on the financialization of the third sector.

The financialisation of the Third Sector and its relationships with the banking world are analysed. We start from the connection of the world of social cooperation with the territorial banking fabric and what emerges - and it is not a surprise - is a growing detachment of banking practice from knowledge of the territory: both in terms of number of branches and skills linked to the territory, but also in the way of banking.

This is not a surprise, and even less so for those who know the world of banking well. In our case, this data has clear consequences on the choice of interlocutors other than banks (in some cases for non-legal channels), as well as alternative financing channels (also not always legal).

The research analyzes a large amount of data. How was the sample made up and what sources did you rely on?

We used mixed investigation and analysis tools, using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative research consists of two parts. Initially, we traced a general picture of the relationship between banks and businesses in the two regions, with a specific focus on third sector businesses thanks to the results of the Intesa Sanpaolo-Aiccon sample survey. Secondly, we focused on a sample of around 500 companies extracted from the single national register of the third sector (Runts) operating in Campania and Veneto.