Transnational Crime and Black Spots: Rethinking Sovereignty and the Global Economy

ISBN-13: 9781137496690 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 250 str.

M. Hermann; S. Brown

Opis

This book explores how transnational criminal, insurgent, and terrorist organizations have exploited globalization to develop a parallel illicit economy and governance system. Examining the world through their eyes, it readjusts standard geopolitical notions of international relations. The authors show how these organizations' safe havens-or black spots-facilitate their activities by insuring the absence of state governance and regulation. Like black markets and pirate sanctuaries, black spots defy the Westphalian state system. Using detailed case studies of 80 such black spots worldwide, Brown and Hermann illustrate how such entities produce, transport, and distribute illicit goods and services by maintaining their own networks and governance structures. In doing so, they provide policymakers, law enforcement, and the academic community with new information on which to base strategies for understanding and dealing with black spots and the illicit organizations that govern them. In addition, this innovative and timely work is relevant for students and scholars of international relations, international law and global governance, international political economy, national security policy, non-state actors, post-conflict reconstruction, business strategy, and the economics of agglomeration.

Spis treści

Chapter 1: Introduction: Setting the Stage.- Part I: Theoretical Foundations.- Chapter 2: Geopolitics and Transnational Crime.- Chapter 3: The New Economic Geography and the Illicit Economy.- Part II: Toward Developing a Black Spots Network.- Chapter 4: Activities, Functions, and Linkages.- Chapter 5: Black Spots, Actors, and Governance.- Chapter 6: Methods of Financing the Illicit Economy.- Part III: Extensions and Implications.- Chapter 7: Black Spots in Cyberspace?.- Chapter 8: Discoveries and Challenges.

O autorze

Stuart S. Brown is Director of the Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR) program and Vice-Chair of the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, USA.

Margaret G. Hermann is Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs and Director of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, USA.

Blurb

“The strength of this book is that it does not look at a single case or even a few disparate examples of drug, weapon, and human trafficking but looks at many patterns—intra-regionally, cross-nationally, and internationally. It is an innovative addition to the literature on the nature of the safe havens—or ‘black spots’—currently being used for illicit activity. This book will make a clear impact on the scholarship of transnational crime and the geopolitics of the illicit global economy.”
—Jeremy Morris, Aarhus University, Denmark

 Transnational criminal, insurgent, and terrorist organizations seek places that they can govern and operate from with minimum interference from law enforcement. This book examines 80 such safe havens which function outside effective state-based government control and are sustained by illicit economic activities. Brown and Hermann call these geographic locations ‘black spots’ because, like black holes in astronomy that defy the laws of Newtonian physics, they defy the world as defined by the Westphalian state system. The authors map flows of insecurity such as trafficking in drugs, weapons, and people, providing an unusually clear view of the hubs and networks that form as a result. As transnational crime is increasing on the internet, Brown and Hermann also explore if there are places in cyberspace which can be considered black spots. They conclude by elaborating the challenges that black spots pose for law enforcement and both national and international governance.