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phenomenon. There exist evidence that Mafia is a territorially based phenomenon that
is not easy to reproduce in a foreign territory [25,26]. Thus empirical evidence indi-
cates that Mafia operates differently within different social environments. This can
be summarized into the distinction between Mafia in a
traditional
environment, un-
dertaking
systematic
extortion within a territory, and Mafia in an non-traditional envi-
ronment, using opportunities of various types of legal and illegal economic activities
and only occasionally undertaking
predatory
extortion. In contrast to non-traditional
types, the Mafia in a traditional environment is perceived as a legitimate authority.
A first step in the development of a simulation model is the development of a
shared domain ontology which provides the key terms and relations. Thus we need to
define a space of discourse D and a set of relations R of our conceptualisation of ERS.
A first sketch will be presented at a different talk at this conference. For the question
of what ontology development contributes to the process of theoretical coding it need
to be emphasised that this is an inductive and iterative process of refinement of the
code, starting from data analysis to ontology development and going back to the data.
Ontology development enables to identify gaps in the data basis, which suggests to
gather new data. In the following, some questions will be outlined which so far arose
in the ongoing process of ontology development to demonstrate how disentangling a
verbal description into a formal and explicit specification of an ontology facilitates
the process of
theoretical
coding:
•
A result of a first investigation, undertaken by Sicilian project partners, is that it is
a distinctive feature of the Mafia in a traditional environment that it has been per-
ceived to some degree as a legitimate ruling authority over the Sicilian territory.
However, beside the fact that the question of legitimacy is a highly normative
question, it is also empirically not easy to disentangle the verbal concept of
legitimacy into behavioural terms and relations between interacting individuals.
Currently lab experiments are undertaken to investigate the underlying
socio-psychological mechanisms. Thereby the ontology development enables a
triangulation between different empirical research methods.
•
A result of the first empirical field work is a distinction between a traditional and
non-traditional environment which are differentiated by different normative
systems. However, it need to be clarified how these normative systems are charac-
terised. The development of an ontology requires to disentangle the multiple di-
mensions of the concept of a traditional and non-traditional environment and to
stimulate further empirical research.
•
One important dimension of the normative system of a traditional environment is
that on the one hand, Mafiosi are well-known, while on the other hand Mafia is
nevertheless a secret organisation. This indicates that the concept of reputation is
required in an explicit micro-specification of the notion of a traditional environ-
ment. Mechanisms of gathering reputation need to be investigated in further
empirical field work.
•
Beginning with the second Mafia war in the 1970s and 1980s Anti-Mafia move-
ments emerged in Sicily. This is a cultural change, indicating a loss of legitimacy
of the Mafia authority. An ontology development requires to spell out such a
cultural change in terms of micro mechanisms to identify the core dimensions.
