Gulags, Crime, and Elite Violence: Origins and Consequences of the Russian Mafia

Jakub Lonsky

No 711, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). Using a unique web scraped dataset containing detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders, I first show that the Russian mafia originated in the Soviet Gulag archipelago, and could be found near the gulags' initial locations in mid-1990s Russia, some three decades after the camps were officially closed down. Then, using an instrumental variable approach that exploits the proximity of the Russian mafia to the gulags, I show that Russian communities with mafia presence in the mid-1990s experienced a dramatic rise in crime driven by elite violence which erupted shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The violence – initially confined to the criminal underworld – eventually spilled over, leading to indiscriminate attacks against local businessmen, managers of state-owned enterprises, judges, and members of the state security apparatus. However, there was no increase in politically-motivated violence, suggesting a widespread collusion between the mafia and local politicians in the early post-Soviet Russia.

Keywords: Russian mafia; Gulag; Post-socialist transition; Crime; Elite violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 N40 P16 P37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Gulags, crime, and elite violence: Origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:711

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