As everybody would expect things are never simple. First you must remember that Italy became a unified country in 1860 and before that it was divided in different states with different cultures different governments and they were also invaded by different enemies. For example the culture of Genova, Venezia, Pisa, and Amalfi is different because they were maritime republics and so their finances and power came from controlling the Mediterranean waters, they had not major interests for power through the local land owners. A second thing that you should also consider that Americans tend to think of Mafia as an unchangeable form of organized crime and that is not true. The biggest change came from the Italian immigration to the USA, the Italians were practically the only population going back and forth between the two countries and they brought a lot of change in learned criminal behaviors from the USA, organized crime already existed in the USA. Third when Americans think of organized crime in Italy they think only of the historical mafia and that is incorrect too. Even if we exclude the Russian mafia, the Chinese mafia, and other eastern European elements that are recent imports in Italy, we still have different organizations like Camorra that developed in the area near Naples, The Sacra Corona Unita from Puglie and then we have the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria. At present the 'Ndrangheta is the most dangerous one, it is all over Italy (e.g. Milan) and quite spread across Europe too (e.g. Germany). 'Ndrangheta has strong business affiliations with South American cartels and they are so violent that Colombians and Mexicans are afraid of them. My take is that the past history of Sicily and of the Mafia are not useful to understand the present organized crime behaviors, now it is easier to understand how international corporations work to see how the crime families can expand and act, those criminals can be really nasty people but they are not stupid at all.
