At the scale seen in Palermo (though not only Palermo, by any means) it is effectively a government (and this point is an element of the article), but without a

At the scale seen in Palermo (though not only Palermo, by any means) it is effectively a government (and this point is an element of the article), but without a constitution (unless you count "submit to violence" as one) and sustained economically by extortion, corruption, and drug- and human-trafficking. Lest this seems smug, let me say that, with SCOTUS struggling to find anything wrong in the events of January 6 2021, I am not feeling at all smug.