Jamaican Dons, Italian Godfathers and the Chances of a ‘Reversible Destiny’

Hume N. Johnson and Joseph L. Soeters

Political Studies, 2008, vol. 56, issue 1, 166-191

Abstract: For close to 50 years, so‐called ‘dons’ have positioned themselves as civic leaders in Jamaica, gaining acceptance among poor urban communities and (tacit) political recognition in the wider society. The dons' systematic, coercive organisation of the ghetto community and the counter‐hegemonic, executive‐style bureaucracy and culture entrenched here resembles the ‘godfather’‐led criminal culture and power of the (Italian) Mafia. However, over the last ten years the Mafia has faced a considerable decline in its omnipotence, due to increased state intervention and resistance within civil society, particularly by women in the local Italian communities. This article attempts to ascertain if such a ‘reversible destiny’ is also thinkable in Jamaica.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00682.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:polstu:v:56:y:2008:i:1:p:166-191

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0032-3217

Access Statistics for this article

Political Studies is currently edited by Matthew Festenstein and Martin Smith

More articles in Political Studies from Political Studies Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().