Bulgaria: organised crime, private security and the state post-1989

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Marina Tzvetkova
Keyword(s):  
Organised Crime ◽  
Private Security ◽  
The State

Combatting organised crime and terrorism in Central Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma van Santen
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
State Crime ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Terrorist Groups

Purpose This paper aims to examine the shift away from the traditional distinction between organised crime and terrorist groups towards their conceptual convergence under the crime-terror nexus narrative in the context of international security and development policy in post-Soviet Central Asia. It assesses the empirical basis for the crime-terror and state-crime nexus in three Central Asian countries – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – and argues that the exclusion of the state from the analytical framework undermines the relevance of the crime-terror paradigm for policy-making. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on a literature review of academic research, recent case studies highlighting new empirical evidence in Central Asia and international policy publications. Findings There is a weak empirical connection between organised crime and Islamic extremists, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizbut Tahrir, in Central Asia. The state-crime paradigm, including concepts of criminal capture, criminal sovereignty and criminal penetration, hold more explanatory power for international policy in Central Asia. The crime-terror paradigm has resulted in a narrow and ineffective security-oriented law enforcement approach to counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism but does not address the underlying weak state governance structures and political grievances that motivate organised crime and terrorist groups respectively. Originality/value International policy and scholarship is currently focussed on the areas of convergence between organised crime and terrorist groups. This paper highlights the continued relevance of the traditional conceptual separation of terrorist and organised crime groups based on their different motives, methods and relationship with the state, for security and democratic governance initiatives in the under-researched Central Asian region.

scholarly journals Poaching of marine living resources: Can the tide be turned?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Van As
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Future ◽  
Full Power ◽  
A Priority

Certain marine living resources of South Africa are under severe threat from international organised crime syndicates in conjunction with local fishers. These criminal activities erode respect for the rule of law and lead to socio-economic degradation and the proliferation of gangsterism. The current government approach as custodians of the resources is to maximise the return from confiscations. SAPS are not using the full power of the law to address poaching of marine living resources, particularly abalone, as a priority crime and do not allocate their resources commensurate with the value of the commodity. As a country that is beleaguered by fisheries crime, overfishing and exploitation, South Africa must take a tough stance and should pursue criminal organisations with all the power that the state can muster. It must also ensure that national fisheries resource management is improved so that local communities can benefit. The implementation of a conforming strategy would be socially and politically unpopular, but the future benefits will outweigh the outlay.

Facilitating Irregular Migration into Malaysia and from Indonesia: Illicit Markets, Endemic Corruption and Symbolic Attempts to Overcome Impunity

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-31
Author(s):  
Gerhard Hoffstaedter ◽  
Antje Missbach
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
Income Generation ◽  
Irregular Migration ◽  
Criminal Network ◽  
Control Power ◽  
Illicit Markets ◽  
Formal Economy

Abstract Discourses around illicit markets for irregular migration focus on criminality and global dimensions threatening border security and the sovereignty of the state. Organised crime has generally been understood to be committed by crime syndicates outside or parallel to the dominant order and formal economy. In Malaysia and Indonesia, however, the state (or parts thereof) is heavily implicated in such crime and essential for the success of unsanctioned trans-border movements. The participation of state officials could be analysed as a convergence of extralegal income generation and symbolic law enforcement. This article presents case studies from Malaysia and Indonesia that could only have taken place because security officials facilitated them. It challenges the orthodoxy of a state versus criminal network opposition and seeks to explain the circumstances under which legal prosecution occurs. The symbolic punishment of low-ranking officials reinforces networks of control, power hierarchies and cooperation of the state in illicit markets.

Royal Commissions of Inquiry

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Gilligan
Keyword(s):  
Organised Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
Explanatory Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
Commissions Of Inquiry ◽  
General Explanation

This article first examines the historical conditions surrounding the evolution of royal commissions of inquiry, and the political and ideological functions that they may serve. The royal commissions of inquiry established in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s to inquire into organised crime are discussed in order to explore possibilities for a general explanation of royal commissions.The conclusion reached is that royal commissions of inquiry are an important component of official discourse and may perform a legitimation function for apparatuses of the state. However, royal commissions of inquiry are too diverse in their effects to be tied down to a uniform explanatory model, whether based upon notions of crisis motivation or legitimation deficit.

Non-State Policing in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.J. Cooper-Knock
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Private Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Simple Indicator

Studies of policing go to the heart of debates over public authority, violence, and order. Across the globe, the state cannot be assumed to be at the center of policing practices or their authorization. Across Africa, a diverse mix of individuals, groups, and corporations are involved in policing people’s everyday lives and the spaces in which they live them. Categorizing the different groups and individuals in this varied landscape is no simple task. Even drawing lines between “state” and “non-state” policing is not as easy as it may first appear. In reality, any constructed boundary is likely to be more porous and fluid than imagined. In some cases, this is because the service providers become entangled with the state. State officials, for example, may moonlight for other policing organizations. Conversely, state institutions might collaborate with, or outsource work to, civilian and corporate actors. In other cases, groups who identify as non-state actors may still mimic the symbols, materials and practices of the state in an attempt to bolster their own claims to public authority. Faced with the difficulty of sustaining any simple divide between categories such as “state” or “non-state” policing scholars have taken a variety of analytical routes: refining their definitions; developing “ideal types” against which messy empirical realities can be juxtaposed, or moving away from bounded typologies in an attempt to understand group and individuals on their own terms. Taking the latter course, this article highlights the variety of putatively non-state policing organizations and formations across the continent. In doing so, it highlights that the presence of private security corporations, rebel groups, neighbourhood watches, or so-called mobs are no simple indicator of the absence or weakness of state institutions and imaginaries. Understanding everyday negotiations over statehood and sovereignty requires a more nuanced approach. When this path is taken, and policing landscapes are studied in all their complexity, we gain crucial insights into the ways in which being and belonging, law and order, power and legitimacy, privilege and oppression function in any given context.

scholarly journals Police guns and private security cars. Ordering the state through socio-material policing assemblages in Nairobi

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-452
Author(s):  
Francesco Colona
Keyword(s):  
Private Security ◽  
Radio Networks ◽  
The State ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Safe Spaces ◽  
Private Security Companies ◽  
Police Personnel ◽  
One Year ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Security Companies

In this article, I show how the work of heterogeneous security and policing assemblages in Nairobi hinges upon and reproduces physical urban borders, and consequentially enacts social orders. While these assemblages enrol a diverse collection of people and objects, I liken their work to that of the state: some urban residents are considered as belonging to safe spaces and in need of extra protection, while others are considered dangerous and targets of policing activities. I draw on one year of ethnographic fieldwork with private security companies and police patrols in middle- and upper-class Nairobi. In Nairobi, armed police personnel are commonly seen in vehicles that are marked with the logos and colours of security companies or private vehicles. These arrangements are not only based on agreements between companies’ managers, urban residents and police, but rely on what specific infrastructures (such as road or radio networks) and various objects (such as guns and cars) afford. These material elements are not insignificant details. Rather they become central to the unfolding of the patrols. They contribute to the work of security and policing assemblages of categorizing Nairobi’s residents as either dangerous and potentially criminal subjects or as residents in need of extra protection.

SECURITY ORGANIZATION AND REGIM OF DETENTION FOR PRISONERS OF WAR AND INTERNEES IN SIBERIAN CAMPS IN 1945-1950

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-83
Author(s):  
N.M. Markdorf ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Personnel ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
The State ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Civilian Employees ◽  
The Military ◽  
Military Discipline ◽  
Prison Guards ◽  
Training Of Personnel

The article provides an analysis of the problems of the provision of camps in Siberia with personnel and the protection of foreign prisoners of war and internees in the 1945-1950s, which were considered and resolved both at the state and regional levels. Despite the low personnel potential, a systematic under-staffing of the military personnel of the garrison of the convoy troops and private security in 1947-1948 largely these problems were solved. This was made possible thanks to the complex of administrative and educational measures, the reduction of unprofitable and understaffed units, the staffing of the camps with freed up qualified officers, prison guards and civilian employees, the strengthening of military discipline, the combat and service training of personnel, the strengthening of control by political departments and operational departments, and the intensification of intelligence -information activities. It was possible to reduce the number of shoots.

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