A majority of voters might then in principle support a successful fight against the mafia, if this is not too costly. Yet mafia's persistence (documented for the Italian case, among others, by Buonanno et al., 2015), suggests that either at some point further fighting organized crime has higher social costs than benefits, or that, even when the reverse is true, something in the political process prevents the majority that would benefit from a sharp fight against the mafia from giving rise to effective policies in such direction.