But over the past few decades, a different form of power brokerage has emerged. P3, which came to light through judicial investigations in 2010, and above all the Mafia Capitale investigation, revealed phenomena different from P2, but useful for examining the same underlying question: how are power relationships actually built when formal institutions are not enough to explain what is happening?
From the Lodge to the Network
The fundamental difference lies in the structure.
A lodge belongs to a vertical model: there is an organization, there are memberships, there are internal rules, and there is a relatively clear boundary between those who are inside and those who are outside.
The model that has emerged from more recent cases is much more fluid. There is not necessarily a single command center. There may be individuals who simultaneously belong to different worlds, personal relationships that cross political and economic circles, interests that temporarily converge, and intermediaries capable of connecting people who would normally have no direct relationship with one another.
This is where the concept of the “Middle World” takes on a meaning that goes beyond any single criminal case.
“We Are in the Middle”
In the Mafia Capitale case, Massimo Carminati described, in a wiretapped conversation, his conception of a world in which the “upper” and “lower” levels met: on one side, politics and business; on the other, organized crime; and in the middle, individuals capable of connecting these environments and turning relationships into exchanges of mutual benefit.
The statement is not a scientific theory of power, nor can it automatically be taken as a description of the entire Italian political system. Yet it is an extremely effective representation of a particular mechanism: the power of the intermediary.
An intermediary does not necessarily have to control everyone. It is enough for that person to be indispensable to someone.
They may know the politician who has access to the decision-making process, the entrepreneur who controls the resources, the public official who understands the procedures, the professional who knows how to navigate the bureaucracy, and the criminal figure capable of applying pressure that others cannot exert directly.
Their power comes precisely from the connection.
The Gray Zone
This may be the most important difference from the traditional image of P2.
Contemporary power does not always need to hide completely. It can operate within the gray zone of personal relationships, where the boundary between a professional relationship, friendship, favor, economic interest, and political influence can become difficult to draw.
Public contracts, consulting arrangements, cooperatives, companies, appointments, associations, foundations, professional firms, and personal relationships can, in certain circumstances, become spaces where different interests converge.
This does not mean that every relationship between politics, business, and civil society is suspicious. Rather, it means that when oversight mechanisms are weak, informal networks can acquire an importance far greater than their formal status would suggest.
And this is precisely where the Mafia Capitale case becomes instructive.
The Limits of the Mafia Metaphor
There is, however, an important distinction that must not be overlooked.
The Mafia Capitale investigation was initially built in part around allegations involving mafia-type association. In the subsequent judicial proceedings, however, this classification was not upheld for the organization as a whole. The courts distinguished conduct characterized by violence and extortion from conduct based primarily on corruption and the management of relationships with public officials.
This point is crucial because it prevents us from turning the “Middle World” into a legal category that it is not.
It can instead, with the necessary caution, be understood as a sociological metaphor for the power of intermediation.
And perhaps that is precisely the most interesting part.
Power No Longer Needs a Secret Room
The old idea of covert power imagines a locked room, a handful of men sitting around a table, and a shared strategy.
Relational power can work differently.
It does not necessarily require a room. A series of phone calls, dinners, friendships, connections, companies, appointments, and reciprocal favors may be enough.
Not everyone needs to know the entire plan. It may be sufficient for each person to know the right person.
In this sense, power becomes networked.
Its strength depends not only on the position someone occupies, but also on the quantity and quality of the connections that person is able to control.
It is a much harder model to identify because it does not necessarily leave behind a membership card, a list of members, or a hierarchical structure.
It leaves relationships.
From P2 to the “Middle World”?
It would therefore be wrong to portray P2, P3, and Mafia Capitale as stages in the development of a single clandestine organization. They are not.
But they can, cautiously, be viewed as different episodes through which Italy has experienced different forms of informal interaction between institutional power, economic interests, and networks of influence.
P2 belongs to the logic of the lodge and the secret organization.
P3 concerns a different judicial case involving allegations of a secret association and activities aimed at influencing institutions.
The “Middle World,” by contrast, emerged from an investigation into crime and corruption in Rome and from a particular conception of the relationships between criminal networks, politics, and business.
Putting them on the same level would be historically inaccurate.
Putting them into dialogue at the level of the sociology of power, however, may be far more interesting.
Because the question is no longer simply: Who belongs to the network?
The question becomes: Who is capable of connecting worlds that would normally have no way of communicating with one another?
And perhaps this is one of the most important forms of contemporary power.
Not necessarily the person who commands.
Not necessarily the person who makes the decision.
But the person who can open a door.
And above all, the person who can decide whom to open it for.
