Venezuela's Gold Heist: The Symbiotic Relationship between the State, Criminal Networks and Resource Extraction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bram Ebus ◽  
Thomas Martinelli
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Criminal Networks

Austerity, Women and the Role of the State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicki Dabrowski
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Gendered Politics ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Everyday Experiences ◽  
The Uk

Using interviews with women from diverse backgrounds, the author of this book makes an invaluable contribution to the debates around the gendered politics of austerity in the UK. Exploring the symbiotic relationship between the state's legitimization of austerity and women's everyday experiences, the book reveals how unjust policies are produced, how alternatives are silenced and highlights the different ways in which women are used or blamed. By understanding austerity as more than simply an economic project, the book fills important gaps in existing knowledge on state, gender and class relations in the context of UK austerity. Delivering a timely account of the misconceptions of policies, discourses and representations around austerity in the UK, the book illustrates the complex ways through which austerity is experienced by women in their everyday lives.

Organized Crime and Criminal Networks in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Shaw ◽  
Tuesday Reitano
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Criminal Group ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
The State ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Criminal Networks ◽  
Illicit Markets ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Impact

Organised crime and criminal networks are an outcome of Africa’s weak systems of state reach and governance, and in turn they further undermine effective state-building. Defining “organized crime” is challenging in the African context. African policy discussions did not use this term until recently, and it is so broad that it covers an enormous range of activity. Nevertheless, it is arguably now generally used and accepted, denoting organized illegal activities by a group of people over time that generate a profit. Such terminology is also now widely referred to internationally and in a UN Convention (which defines an “organized criminal group” but not organized crime itself) to which almost all African states have subscribed. The term “criminal networks” is often also used in African debates, denoting the more flexible and dynamic criminal arrangements that characterize the continent. Organized crime and criminal networks in Africa appear in many different forms, shaped largely by the strength of the state, and the degree that political elites and state actors are themselves involved in them. Broadly, organized crime can be said to occur along a continuum on the continent. On one side are well-established and -organized mafia-style groups such as the hard-core gangs of the Western Cape in South Africa or militia style operations engaged in ‘taxing’ local populations and economic activities, both licit and illicit. In the middle of the continuum, are relatively loose, and often highly effective, criminal networks made up both of Africans (West African criminal networks being the most prominent) and a range of foreign criminal actors seeking opportunities. On the other end, are sets of criminal style entrepreneurs, often operating as companies (the Guptas in South Africa, for example) but with a variety of forms of state protection. Illicit financial outflows in particular are a serious concern, but governance and regulatory reforms will be far more critical than the suppression of illicit markets themselves by law enforcement agencies, given also evidence that suggests a high degree of collusion between some African police and criminals in several illicit markets. Violence too remains a key tool for criminal control and advancement at all points along the spectrum, with the strength of the state and the collusion between state actors and criminal groups often determining the form, intensity and targets of that violence. That is one reason why the link between organized crime and conflict on the continent remains a concern, with actors (who in many cases exhibit criminal or mafia-style attributes) seeking to enhance their resource accumulation by control or taxation of criminal markets. Given this and other factors, the impact of organized crime on Africa’s development is severe, and although in some key markets the illicit economy provides opportunities for livelihood and a source of resilience, these opportunities are negated by the extent of environmental damage, the growth of drug use among the poor and marginalized, human rights abuses of migrants and those being trafficked, the violence engendered, and the economic distortions introduced.

scholarly journals Communal Responses to Structural Violence and Dispossession in Cherán, Mexico

2020 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2097500
Author(s):  
Giovanna Gasparello
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Criminal Organization ◽  
The State ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Illegal Logging ◽  
Economic Control ◽  
Drug Cartels

Mexico is currently subject to generalized violence due to conflicts between drug cartels, the state, and resource-extraction companies jostling for territorial and economic control. In 2011 and in this context, the inhabitants of the indigenous municipality of Cherán confronted the criminal organization responsible for kidnappings, extortion, and illegal logging in their communal territory. Study of this conflict and the communal responses generated in the peace process reveals that the violence was founded on social inequality and was both cause and effect of the indigenous population’s material and cultural dispossession. The peace formation process involved the valorization of a collective and territorially rooted identity, the strengthening of security and justice practices based on the authority of assemblies, and an incipient interest in the construction of economic alternatives for the local population. Actualmente, México vive una situación de violencia generalizada debido a los conflictos entre los cárteles de droga, el Estado y las empresas de extracción de recursos que luchan por el control territorial y económico. En 2011 y en este contexto, los habitantes del municipio indígena de Cherán se enfrentaron a una organización criminal responsable de secuestros, extorsiones y tala ilegal en su territorio comunal. El estudio de este conflicto y las respuestas comunitarias generadas en el proceso de paz revela que la violencia se fundó sobre la desigualdad social y fue tanto causa como efecto del despojo material y cultural de la población indígena. El proceso de paz implicó la valorización de una identidad colectiva y territorialmente arraigada, el fortalecimiento de las prácticas de seguridad y justicia basadas en la autoridad de las asambleas, y un interés incipiente en la construcción de alternativas económicas para la población local.

scholarly journals The Shifting Imaginaries of Corporate Crime

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Tombs ◽  
David Whyte
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Corporate Crime ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
The State ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Advanced Capitalist

This article begins by setting out an analysis of the process of conventionalizing corporate crime that arises from the symbiotic relationship between states and corporations. Noting briefly the empirical characteristics of four broad categories of corporate crime and harm, the article then turns to explore the role of the state in its production and reproduction. We then problematize the role of the state in the reproduction of corporate crime at the level of the global economy, through a discussion of the “crimes of globalization” and “ecocide,” warning of the tendency in the research literature to oversimplify the role of states and of international organizations. The article finishes by arguing that, as critical academics, it is our role to ensure that corporate crime is never normalized nor fully conventionalized in advanced capitalist societies.

The Privatization of Protection: Extortion and The State in the Circassian Mamluk Period

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Meloy
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Reform ◽  
The State ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Effective Power ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
Protection Rackets

AbstractThis article examines privatized forms of protection (himāyah ), and especially extortion, during the Circassian Mamluk period as reported in contemporary chronicles and a tract calling for administrative reform. Protection rackets were characterized by a symbiotic relationship between "protectors" and state officials. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of extortion for our understanding of the effective power of the Mamluk Sultanate during its last century of rule. Cet article examine les formes privées de protection pratiquées durant le règne des Mamelouks circassiens, en particulier l'extorsion. Ces pratiques sont rapportées par les chroniques de l'époque et par un manifeste appelant à des réformes administratives. Cette forme de "racket" se caractérisait par la relation symbiotique liant les "protecteurs" aux fonctionnaires. En conclusion, cette étude nous amène à nous interroger sur la manière dont ces pratiques d'extorsion permettent de mieux cerner le pouvoir réel au sein du sultanat mamelouk pendant le dernier siècle de son existence.

Tamil Nadu Politics and Tamil Cinema: A Symbiotic Relationship?

2021 ◽  
pp. 239386172110541
Author(s):  
Selvaraj Velayutham ◽  
Vijay Devadas
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Everyday Politics ◽  
Tamil Cinema ◽  
And Gender

From the second-half of the twentieth century, a nascent Tamil cinema became increasingly influential in Tamil society and more prominent in political life. The Dravidar Kazhagam, founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in 1944, morphed into the DMK and AIADMK, two dominant state political parties in Tamil Nadu. Through the medium of film, some of its leading lights, C. N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M. G. Ramachandran and Jayalalitha, cultivated cinema audiences and the voting public in the political ideologies of the Dravidian movement and subsequently became Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu. The symbiotic relationship between politics and Tamil cinema has meant that political and social commentaries and the assertion of Tamil nationalistic ideas was commonplace in Tamil films. In recent years, Tamil cinema has become the vehicle for raising a wide range of concerns ranging from caste, class and gender and state/nation politics, marking a shift that focusses on everyday politics in the state. In this article, we present a critical survey of the role of Tamil cinema in disseminating particular realities and politics of identity that speak to an essentialised notion of Tamil cultural and linguistic identity, the concomitant disavowal of broader conceptions of Indian-ness or belonging to the Indian nation, as well as the use of cinema to address everyday politics in the State.

The early 1960s as a cultural space: a microhistory of Ukraine's generation of cultural rebels

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serhy Yekelchyk
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
The State ◽  
Firm Boundaries ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Cultural Events ◽  
Political Choices

This article analyzes the early stage of the Ukrainian “sixtiers” movement as a semi-autonomous space of cultural expression that was tolerated by the authorities and defined, developed, and inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals. In contrast to present-day Ukrainian representations of the sixtiers as a force acting in opposition to the Soviet regime, the spatial angle employed here reveals an ambiguous relationship with official institutions. The Ukrainian Komsomol organization in particular appears to be both a controlling and an enabling agent that, together with the Writers' Union, provided meeting venues for the sixtiers until the mid-1960s. This complex symbiotic relationship continued even after some creative youth pioneered the first attempts to claim public space for cultural events without the authorities' permission. The cultural terrain inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals was not fully separate from mainstream Soviet Ukrainian culture or in opposition to it, although their vibrant cultural space also reached into a world of non-conformist culture unregulated by the state. A series of government crackdowns beginning in the mid-1960s dramatically shrank this open, ambivalent space of semi-free cultural expression, imposing firm boundaries and forcing intellectuals to make political choices.

Youth and 'The Movement' – Social Life in a Rural District of Buryatia

Inner Asia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Breslavsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
The State ◽  
Rural District ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
Eastern Siberia ◽  
Criminal Networks ◽  
State Collapse ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis article describes the development of criminal youth networks in rural Buryatia, Eastern Siberia. As it shows, the criminal gangs emerging out of the state collapse in the 1990s have colonised entire villages: a movement originally offering escape from a harsh economic environment has acquired the power to dictate the social reality of the regions it occupies. This piece also investigates the extent to which the practices mediating power relations within these criminal networks generate a distinct subculture, using Huizinga's analysis of culture as a 'game', which has to be 'played out' according to mutually understood conventions and norms.

scholarly journals Impact of digitalization on the evolution of internal corporate institutions in the northern resource-extraction region

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 03002
Author(s):  
Vadim Faruarovich Islamutdinov
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
The State ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Extraction Region ◽  
Institutional Traps ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Incentive Payments

The article examines domestic and foreign sources that study the impact of digitalization on the evolution of intracorporate institutions. Then the state of internal corporate institutions in the northern resource- extracting region - KhMAO-Yugra is considered. The author’s features of the classification of intracorporate institutions are proposed. Institutional traps of intracorporate institutions are identified and described, both all- Russian: the trap of the authoritarianism of the head and the trap of information asymmetry, and specific to Yugra KhMAD: the trap of bureaucracy, the trap of incentive payments and the trap of low unemployment. The influence of digitalization on the evolution of internal corporate institutions in the northern resource-extraction region is shown, including on overcoming old institutional traps and on the emergence of the new ones: the trap of ease of interaction and the trap of trust in the algorithms. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the pace of digitalization of internal corporate institutions in -Yugra KhMAD, which lags behind the global ones, was especially noted.

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