Criminal Capture and The Reallocation of Political Participation

How do citizens react to the criminal capture of state institutions? Do they simply reduce their engagement with public life or do they reallocate it across different channels of participation? With an event-study design, I show that revealing collusion between Italian public officials and organized criminal groups leads to a modest reduction in electoral turnout. However, collusion episodes are also followed by a sizable increase in the participation of citizens to the activities of civil society organizations fighting organized crime. I analyze the causal mechanisms behind this effect with an original survey experiment. Receiving information about the incidence of collusion increases citizens’ concerns about organized criminal groups while decreasing their confidence that the state will contrast them. This induces reallocation: collusion weakens electoral participation while strengthening civic engagement. These findings complement the existing literature about the effects of state capture on citizens’ behavior, showing that it can foster their engagement in non-traditional forms of political participation.