Varieties of Criminal Organisation

John Lea (2008)

Introduction

Many criminal organisations are forms of 'government', that is to say that they exercise control over populations and resources. This is done often in the face of the agencies of the legitimate state which seek to disrupt and repress such organisations. But sometimes these criminal organisations are more powerful than legitimate states or, on occasion, act as their proxies. At the same time criminal organisations may be powerful economic agencies, manufacturing and trading resources over wide areas of the globe, again, in the face of opposition by legitimate states and economic enterrises or, on occasion, in collusion with them. Criminal organisations have developed modern and sophisticated forms of communication and networking which respond very well to the requirements of global communication and interaction. 

In these four sessions we shall take a glimpse at some aspects of these processes. In the first two sessions we shall look at two forms of criminal government - mafias and warlords - and in the second two sessions at two forms of criminal communications - traffickers and terrorist networks. We shall also attempt to investigate the blurred boundaries between and interactions, among, all four

A useful introductory essay which you should begin by reading is 

Lea, J., & Stenson, K. (2007). Security, Sovereignty, and Non-State Governance “From Below”. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 22(2), 9-27.

1. Mafias

The Sicilian Mafia is one of the oldest and most well known criminal organisations in Europe. It was not simply a group involved in various forms of criminal enterprise such as extortion or trading illegal commodities. It was also a system of power and local political rule. Indeed some commentators would argue this was its main activity. In recent years commentators (e.g. Frederico Varese) have drawn analogies between the Sicilian Mafia and the newer powerful systems of organised crime (popularly known as 'Mafiya') that developed in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. Also during the wars in former Yugoslavia during the mid 1990s the role of Mafia-type organisations in the organisation of war economies was also noted.

reading - introduction

Lea, John (2002) Crime and Modernity. London: Sage Publications (especially pp 70-74, 149-160)

the Sicilian Mafia as a system of rule

Paoli, Letizia (2003) Mafia brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Paoli, Letizia (2005) 'Italian Organised Crime: Mafia Associations and Criminal Enterprises' in Mark Galeotti ed. Global Crime Today: The Changing Face of Organised Crime. London: Routledge

Paoli, Letizia (2002) 'The Paradoxes of Organised Crime' Crime Law and Social Change (37)1: 51-97

Arlacchi, Pino (1985) Mafia business: The Mafia ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gambetta, Diego (1993) The Sicilian Mafia: the business of private protection. New York: Harvard University Press.

Catanzaro, Raimondo (1994) 'Violent Social Regulation: Organized Crime in the Italian South' Social and Legal Studies (3) pp 267-79

Catanzaro, Raimondo (1992) Men of Respect: a social history of the sicilian mafia. New York: The Free Press

Blok, Anton (1974) The Mafia of a Sicilian Village 1860-1980: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Dickie, John (2004) Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia. London: Hodder

Lewis, Norman (1964) The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed . London: Eland Books

Hess, Henner (1973) Mafia and Mafiosi: The Structure of Power. Farnborough: Saxon House

comparing Sicilian and Russian systems of organised crime

Varerse, Frederico (2001) The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Varese, Frederico (1994) 'Is Sicily the Future of Russia? Private Protection and the rise of the Russian Mafia.' European Journal of Sociology 35(2) 224-258

Volkov, Vadim (2002). Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism. New York: Cornell University Press.

Rawlinson, Patricia (1998) 'Mafia, Media and Myth: Representations of Russian Organised Crime' Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 37:4 pp 346-358

Rawlinson, Patricia (1998) 'Russian Organised Crime: moving beyond ideology' in Ruggiero, V. South, N. Taylor, I. eds. The New European Criminology: crime and social order in Europe. pp. 242-263 London: Routledge

Mafias in war situations: building criminal states

Tilly, C. (1985). War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, & T. Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (pp169–91).

Strazzari, F. (2003) Between Ethnic Collusion and Mafia Collusion: The "Balkan Route" to State-Making. In D. Jung (ed), Shadow Globalisation, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars: a political economy of intra-state war. London: Routledge.

Schlichte, K. (2003). State formation and the economy of intra-state wars. In D. Jung (ed), Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars: a political economy of intra-state war. London: Routledge.
 

2. Warlords

The study of 'warlords' has become increasingly important in recent years. Warlords are similar to Mafia in the exercise of non-state power, backed by armed force to control resources and populations in a particular region. But unlike the Sicilian Mafia, warlords exercise power less in collusion with state authorities and more likely as a result of the collapse of legitimate state regimes. They play a significan role in what have come to be termed 'new wars'. We saw in the previous session that some organised crime groups certainly operate in such circumstances and so the boundary between mafias and warlords in blurred.  Two areas in which warlord regimes are particularly important at the present time are Africa and Afghanistan. The latter is interesting as a case study of the complex relations between regional warlords and the attempts to stabilise and extend the power of central government. In the African context the main focus will be on role of warlords in the recent conflict in Sierra Leone, though at the present time the situation in Somalia and Congo DRC are important examples. However in all the case studies the role of illegal commodities ( for example opium for illegal heroin in Afghanistan and 'blood diamonds' in Sierra Leone) and the popular notion that areas run by warlords are 'failed states', leads to a focus on the complex connections between warlord regimes, international organised crime and transnational corporations

reading – introduction and general surveys

MacKinlay, John (2000) ‘Defining warlords’, International Peacekeeping 7:1 (download)

Roberts, J. (1989) ‘Warlordism in China’, Review of African Political Economy, 16:45/46 

Duffield, Mark (1998) 'Post-Modern Conflict: Warlords, Post Adjustment States and Private Protection,' Civil Wars, vol. 1, no. 1

Kaldor, Mary (1999) New and Old Wars: organized violence in a global era. Cambridge: Polity Press

Muenkler, Herfried (2005) The New Wars. Cambridge: Polity

Jackson, Paul (2003). Warlords as alternative forms of Governance. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 14(2): 131-150.

Duffield, Mark (2001) Global Governance and the New Wars: the merging of development and security. London: Zed Books

Simpson, Gerry (2004) Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Jung, Dietrich (ed.) (2003) Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars: Political Economy of Intra-State War. London: Routledge, 

Reno, William (2002) 'Mafiya Troubles, Warlord Crises,' in Mark R. Beissinger and Crawford Young, eds., Beyond State Crisis? Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective. Woodrow Wilson Center Press 

Michael Mann, “The Dark Side of Democracy,” New Left Review 235 (1999), pp. 18-45

Africa

Reno, William (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder: Lynne Rienner

Orugun, Paul (2003) 'Plunder, Predation and Profiteering: the Political Economy of Armed Conflicts and Economic Violence in Modern Africa.' Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 2(2): 283-313

Orugun, Paul (2004) 'Blood Diamonds’ and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post-Cold War Era,' World Affairs, 166(3): 151-61

Chabal, P. and Daloz, J. (1999) Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument. Oxford: International African Institute /James Currey. (esp chapter 6)

Giustozzi, Antonio (2005) The Debate on Warlordism: The Importance of Military Legitimacy. Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Discussion Paper 13. London: LSE (download here)

Keen, David (2005) Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone. London: James Currey 

Soggot, M. (2002).  Conflict Diamonds Are Forever.  International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. (webpage here)

Bayart, J.F., Hibou, B., & Ellis, S. (1999). The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: International African Institute /James Currey.
 

Recent conflicts in Congo DRC

To familiarise yourself with the recent history of the region you could do no better than go to the Open Democracy website and read the recent (November 2008) article by Gérard Prunier (webpage here) The page contains numerous links to other information. Also useful is Guardian correspondant Chris McGreal's introduction to the current confict (view here)

More in-depth is Gabi Hesselbein (2007) THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE CONGOLESE STATE. LSE Crisis States Research Centre (download here) Frederick Golooba-Mutebi's paper on neighbouring Rwanda is also useful (download here)

Specifically on warlords, one of the most important and high profile current 'warlords' is General Laurent Nkunda. Typing his name into Google will yield a large number of results. There is a useful Guardian profile here  and a similar profile on the BBC website here.

Afghanistan

Giustozzi, Antonio (2003) Respectable Warlords? The Politics of State-Building in Post-Taleban Afghanistan. Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Working Paper 33. London: LSE (download here)

Giustozzi, Antonio (2006) "Tribes" and Warlords in Southern Afghanistan, 1980-2005 Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Working Paper 7 (series 2) (download here)

Giustozzi, Antonio (2004) 'Good' State vs. 'Bad' Warlords? A Critique of State-Building Strategies in Afghanistan. Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Working Paper 51 (download here)