De simulatione et veritate : The pragmatics of hypocrisy in the criminological discourse of a high-ranking mafia informant

Abstract

Criminology has examined impression management and moral discourse but has paid limited attention to hypocrisy as an interactional practice. This article analyzes televised interviews featuring Carmine Schiavone, a senior member of the Casalesi clan, who became a state witness and later re-entered public discourse through national and regional broadcasting. Using pragmatically informed discourse analysis, hypocrisy is treated as a situated strategy for managing conflicting moral identities and shifting responsibility and blame across mafia–state relations. Five analytical themes organize the analysis: honor, legitimacy, complicity, betrayal, and resistance. The findings show how contradictory positioning is used to preserve symbolic authority after defection, frame collusion as routine governance, and produce ambiguity about responsibility for harm. Hypocrisy is distinguished from neutralization, moral disengagement, and lying by its cumulative, relational, and temporally extended structure. A zemiological framing specifies how ambiguity-making can generate social harms in mafia-affected settings, including institutional distrust and reputational contamination.