Keywords

• The article deals with the role of the security policies in the fight against the mafia in Italy. In order to understand the specificity of these policies it distinguishes and opposes two models: the â€
• œ
• authoritarian complianceâ€
• 
• and the â€
• œ
• democratic strictnessâ€
• 
• . The first one is far and away the most practiced in the Italian historical experience. The author maintains that this supremacy is strictly connected with the weakness of the Italian governmentsâ€
• ™
• fight
• in spite of the acknowledged excellent skills of investigative corps and of many judges. The article underlines that the consequence of this bureaucratic and political attitude is the transformation of security into a dependent variable. The author shows the theory of â€
• œ
• emergencyâ€
• 
• as the most effective and deep explanation of the swinging course of the antimafia policies of the Italian State