State Fragility and Organized Crime

There are always probabilities of strong relationships between transnational organized crime group, the government, semi-government agencies and irregular formations. Because, at the fundamental level, motivations and aspirations of all these agencies and groups may be similar, i.e. making as much money or profit as quickly as possible; whether in a semi-legitimate or illegitimate means and ways. For this, they will be ready to use any modus operandi; the end result and harm they cause to the nation and society will be the same. Therefore, more often it is also very difficult to distinguish them one from another. In this regard, they all can be termed “the silent partners” of the legitimate government agencies, semi-government corporations and the organized crime groups (OCGs) and wherever they belong: they converge at a single platform, i.e. the Organized Crime. Therefore, the silent partners of the Organized Crime Group can be any of these: a private party or person, a government officer or his office, a semi-government official or a group of people belonging to these organizations. There may be another similarity among these too;…i.e. they all do their utmost to avoid their appearance in public or willingly acknowledged their involvement in any form and deeds on such cooperative undertaking. There are many ways such organized syndicates apply their methods that may be soft, peaceful to even gruesomely violent means to get access to state power, money or government resources. In this regard, they may apply all types of legitimate and illegitimate means, to name the few, such as protection rackets, and capture public resources, seize of property and land forcibly in an illegitimate way, and eventually entry into the licit private sector by money laundering and other means.

Science as Gift, or Knowledge as the Offer That Cannot be Refused: Introducing Russian Science and Technology Studies

This article introduces a set of articles written by Russian social epistemologists and science and technology studies scholars based on research conducted in the first major Russian Academy funded project on science and technology studies. Most of the articles take off from Peter Galison’s concept of scientific ‘trading zones’. However, the author develops a theme found in Ilya Kasavin’s article on ‘science as gift’, which is designed to transcend both ‘capitalistic’ and ‘communistic’ conceptions of science. However, the resulting political economy of science as gift – albeit quite recognizable – resembles the practice of extortion in mutual protection rackets; hence, the ‘offer too good to refuse’.

Clandestine Relations Matter

The first chapter situates this study in the scholarship on the state and its illicit networks with criminal organizations. It pays particular attention to the notion of intreccio and workings of what scholars call “state-sponsored protection rackets.” Both concepts clearly illustrate the existence of clandestine connections between participants in criminal activity and members of the state repressive apparatus, what at the ground level is known as el arreglo or “the arrangement.” While studies have signaled the importance of these clandestine connections, very few scholarly works have dissected the actual content of these covert relationships. This book not only fills this important gap but also draws connections between police-criminal collusion, drug market dynamics, policing practices, and the lived experiences of residents at the urban margins.

State Regulation of Organized Crime: Politicians, Police, and Drug Trafficking in Argentina

ABSTRACTIn many developing countries with weak formal institutions, the protection of state actors is essential for organized criminal activities and illicit markets to emerge and thrive. This article examines the relationship between the state’s regulation of drug trafficking and its associated violence in highly fragmented markets. It argues that political competition influences coordination among the police, generating different types of regulatory regimes. Police with greater coordination implement protection rackets that curb violence; uncoordinated police carry out particularistic negotiations with drug traffickers that exacerbate criminal violence. This argument is illustrated with a subnational comparison of two Argentine provinces that experienced a similar drug market expansion with different patterns of violence. These cases show how corrupt states can obtain relative order in highly fragmented drug markets, and illustrate police influence in shaping the evolution of drug dealing in metropolitan areas.

Resisting Protection: Rackets, Resistance, and State Building

The state occupies a central place in the study of a range of political, economic, and social outcomes. This article brings into dialogue literature on the state and emerging research on criminal politics through a study of protection rackets. Conceiving of criminal protection rackets as institutional arrangements of extraction and domination, I develop a political economy framework to explain variation in forms of resistance to rackets. The framework shows that distinct configurations of economic and political resources influence the type of resistance available to subordinates. I illustrate the framework's utility using micro-level data on resistance to rackets in Latin America. Attention to how resource endowments shape patterns of resistance to projects of extraction and domination provides a novel window into the bottom-up dynamics of state building.

Countering Protection Rackets Using Legal and Social Approaches: An Agent-Based Test

Protection rackets cause economic and social damage across the world. States typically combat protection rackets using legal strategies that target the racketeers with legislation, strong sentencing, and increasing the presence and involvement of police officers. Nongovernmental organizations, conversely, focus on the rest of the population and counter protection rackets using a social approach. These organisations attempt to change the actions and social norms of community members with education, promotional campaigns, and discussions. We use an agent-based model, which draws on established theories of protection rackets and combines features of sociological and economic perspectives to modelling social interactions, to test the effects of legal and social approaches. We find that a legal approach is a necessary component of a policy approach, that social only approaches should not be used because they lead to large increases in violence, and that a combination of the two works best, although even this must be used carefully.