Peace Operations and Organized Crime

This volume examines the relationship between international peace operations and organised crime - which in some cases are clear enemies, and in others, tacit allies. Peace operations are increasingly on the fron... Les mer

Peace Operations and Organized Crime

This volume examines the relationship between international peace operations and organised crime - which in some cases are clear enemies, and in others, tacit allies. Peace operations are increasingly on the front line in the international community's fight against organized crime, in venues such as Afghanistan, the Balkans, Haiti, Iraq, and West Africa. The threat posed by organized crime to international and human security has become a matter of considerable strategic concern for national and international decision-makers in recent years, but the literature is fragmented and reactive, with only isolated attempts to provide systematic thinking. This book addresses that gap in the literature - and questions the emerging orthodoxy that portrays organized crime as an external threat to the liberal peace offered by the international community, delivered through peace operations. The orthodox position suggests that organized crime emerges out of rational actors' exploitation of the weak conditions of governance inherent in conflict-affected territories. The danger of characterizing contemporary conflict as 'systematically criminalized' is that it may blur significant differences between different actors involved in this 'criminal system', giving rise to simplistic policy prescriptions, and end up regarding entire populations engaged in conflict as 'criminals' who must be repressed by the international community acting through peace operations and other forms of international intervention. Effective maintenance of international peace and security requires a more nuanced analysis of the role of organized crime in local and transnational political economies, and an understanding of how existing international tools will interact with them. This book provides scholars, practitioners and policy makers with a more well-rounded evidentiary base detailing the complex interactions between peace operations and organized crime, a more nuanced analytical framework for making sense of those interactions, and thus an improved basis for effective policy-making and operational response. The book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, organised crime, and IR/Security Studies.

1. Introduction: Rethinking the Relationship between Peace Operations and Organized Crime James Cockayne and Adam Lupel 2. Framing the Issue: UN Responses to Corruption and Criminal Networks in Postconflict Settings Victoria K. Holt and Alix J. Boucher 3. Symbiosis between Peace Operations and Illicit Business in Bosnia Peter Andreas 4. Problems of Crime Fighting by 'Internationals' in Kosovo Cornelius Friesendorf 5. Understanding Criminality in West African Conflicts William Reno 6. Peace Operations and International Crime: The Case of Somalia Roland Marchal 7. Organized Crime, Illicit Power Structures, and Threatened Peace Processes: The Case of Guatemala Patrick Gavigan 8. Winning Haiti's Protection Competition: Organized Crime and Peace Operations Past, Present, and Future James Cockayne 9. Counterinsurgents in the Poppy Fields: Drugs, Wars, and Crime in Afghanistan Vanda Felbab-Brown 10. Organized Crime and Corruption in Iraq Phil Williams 11. Closing the Gap between Peace Operations and Postconflict Insecurity: Towards a Violence Reduction Agenda Robert Muggah and Keith Krause 12. Conclusion: From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand -- Peace Operations, Organized Crime, and Intelligent International Law Enforcement James Cockayne and Adam Lupel

James Cockayne is Co-Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York. He has worked with governmental, business and civil society partners around the world on responses to armed non-state actors. Adam Lupel is Editor at the International Peace Institute, New York. He has a PhD in Political Theory from the New School for Social Research, New York, a Lukk