The accounting absence: explaining the persistence of corruption networks in Mafia-controlled municipalities

The paper argues that a more holistic and network-oriented approach is required to understand the complex and dynamic relationships between accounting and corruption, and to design effective anti-corruption strategies and dissolution policies for Mafia-infiltrated local administrations. By analyzing an extreme case, we investigate how both the absence and presence of accounting can contribute to the establishment of a corruption network in a municipal council dissolved by the government due to Mafia infiltration. Specifically, our findings reveal that accounting can function both as a mechanism for facilitating corruption and as a tool for its concealment, thereby explaining why such networks persist despite governmental intervention. The results provide an opportunity to reconsider the management of municipalities operating under entrenched corruption networks. While the relationship between accounting and corruption is widely acknowledged, the ways in which accounting mechanisms shape and sustain illicit networks remain underexplored in the literature. This study addresses this gap by offering new more nuanced and dynamic perspectives on the role of accounting in reinforcing corruption networks.