Chapter 26 Self-test questions

. What factors enabled the expansion of transnational crime (TNC) in the 1990s?

Transnational crime developed as a result of the declining expenditure on defence and the standing down of armies, which reduced the risk of activities.

TNC as a concept emerged in the academic sphere as linked to human security concerns and developmental opportunities in weak states as a means of conflict resolution and peace building in Europe.

Transnational criminal activities have always been a feature of the international system. In the policy community, the growth of interest in TNC is due to the increasing sophistication of intelligence and communications technology, which has enabled the true representation of the scale and the scope of the problem to be known.

International trends such as globalization may have had the unintentional consequence of opening up new spaces for the development of transnational crime.

. Has TNC become a national security threat?

Transnational crime is regarded as a threat to economic development. Organized crime is seen as a threat to development insofar as it undermines the rule of law and deters foreign investment by increasing the level of insecurity in the host communities. Additionally, criminals often reinvest their proceeds in the legal economy and have unfair advantage through access to cheap capital and their ability to intimidate commercial adversaries. In societies with high levels of TNC, legitimate investors are often reluctant to commit resources.

TNC undermines democratic stability. In many states, transnational criminal enterprises have taken advantage of the instability that has accompanied the democratic transitions to post-communist societies, using their influence in the upper reaches of the state and thus shielding themselves from law enforcement. The corruption of public institutions and the perceived inefficacy of the rule of law in new democracies contribute to undermining public confidence in and loyalty to the new regime.

The ability of transnational crime to evade state border controls and provide new avenues for the illicit transportation of goods and persons challenges the state's ability to exercise its core functions as guarantor of national sovereignty, the monopolization over the control of force, and as the provider of the common good. TNC criminal activities corrupt and undermine numerous state agencies, providing mechanisms by which their activities can affect the very nature of government and state policy in the host countries.

All of the above.

. How was organized crime initially thought of?

Crime networks

Hierarchical crime groups

As a marketplace

Hybrid organizations

. Is TNC a new phenomenon?

There is little evidence to substantiate the claim that there is a real and increasing threat posed by the scale and scope of transnational crime in the 1980s to 1990s beyond the consensus that concern over the levels of crime were generated by the military re-conceiving its role in light of the dissolution of the Cold War.

Whereas illegal markets were territorially bounded and isolated in the past, the contemporary form of illicit markets tends to be interrelated and mutually supporting and more embedded in the legal economy.

TNC is a response by the dispossessed in response to the asymmetric economic development of nation states and the inequity of global market capitalism married with environmental constraints on development.

Transnational crime is no longer the exclusive domain of certain geographic areas or ethnic groups becoming globalized in operation, increasing the number of groups and countries affected and increasing the size of the illegal market ratio to licit trade.

. In what ways have post-Cold War developments undermined state authority?

The increased levels of globalization in trade, finance, and movement have produced an environment conducive to TNC by making it easier for criminals to move illicit profits and illegal goods, provide service, and smuggle persons across borders.

The wave of political transitions to democracy and economic transitions to free market capitalism since the 1980s-a phenomenon which frequently occurred simultaneously in the same country-have undermined state capacity to enforce the rule of law and created new opportunities for organized crime groups to penetrate societies in transition.

The sharp increase in civil conflicts around the globe also created a new generation of refugees. These diasporas have provided the family and ethnic ties that help facilitate a transnational criminal enterprise.

All of the above.

. What is the nature of the relationship between criminals and terrorists?

At times, criminals interested in profits may engage in tactical collaborations with terrorists, especially when the latter controls territory or resources.

Strong criminal organizations often create barriers for terrorists to join, because it may bring unwanted attention from law enforcement.

The two groups have vastly different motives; as such it is hard to predict an inevitable convergence in the future.

All of the above.

. What is the network form of organization?

Collaboration between individuals is often ad hoc and transitory; networks are formed and disbanded as circumstances warrant.

Networks have a decentralized, 'flat' organizational form.

The 'network' offers the most efficacious compromise between profit-maximizing and risk-minimizing structural forms.

All of the above.

. What is the market view of transnational organized crime?

Market place scholars argue that transnational crime operates like a capitalist marketplace in its scope and extensity of operations. Criminal organizations are thus very resilient to law enforcement efforts by virtue of their sheer size. Of comparative difference is the development of highly sophisticated networks of collaboration between criminal groups that has enabled them to survive under the conditions of the competitive logic of the marketplace.

Market analysts argue that the criminal alliances create organizations with a high level of wealth and power that far underestimates what government and official estimates attribute to them. Within this perspective the threat to the licit economy is vastly increased.

Market analysts believe that white-collar and corporate crimes contribute significantly to undermining the licit market. Those organized crime groups are more prone to use violence and corruption than ordinary criminal groups as a result of the extent of profits invested in their activities.

Market analysts claim that organized crime is highly disorganized, and resembles more a market for illicit goods and services than an organization. Proponents of this view minimize the threat posed by organized criminals to states and societies.

. What explains the increased scale and scope of transnational crime and its changing nature?

Increased transnational flow of people, goods, and money

The breakdown of authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc
inorrect

An increase in civil unrest in Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, undermining state authority

All of the above

. In what ways have governments responded to the threat of TNC post-Cold War?

State responses to transnational crime have evolved in correlation to the increased threat posed to the integrity of the state. Organized crime has been regarded primarily as a national security threat to be addressed domestically. The institutionalized international approaches for information sharing have been predominately bilateral to the extent of bringing to justice perpetrators of crime that are seeking to evade justice.

With the expansion of TNC in the 1990s, states became increasingly willing to take measures to reduce the asymmetries between countries through harmonization of legislation and increasing police capacity and networking.

The US war on drugs has heavily influenced the construction of the governmental response to the growing perception that the phenomenon of TNC represents a national security threat. The approach has an emphasis on bilateral and multilateral cooperation on law enforcement combined with sticks on a bi-lateral basis to induce states to increase regulation and enforcement against TNC.

The emergence of norms governing the response to address the spectre of organized crime and to harmonize legislation occurred with the evolving Global War on Terror in which the terrorism-organized crime nexus resulted in the militarization of law enforcement: the use of military technology and intelligence as opposed to addressing the underlying conditions that facilitate illicit trade through an international institutionalist response.

Chapter 26 Self-test questions

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