How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not
Large-scale organized crime occupies a gray zone between ordinary crime and political violence. The unprecedented scale of drug-related crime in Mexico has led to its description as an insurgency or even a civil war, a conceptual move that draws on recent studies that have associated civil war with...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publications
2015
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| _version_ | 1826305347435888640 |
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| author | Kalyvas, SN |
| author_facet | Kalyvas, SN |
| author_sort | Kalyvas, SN |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Large-scale organized crime occupies a gray zone between ordinary crime and political violence. The unprecedented scale of drug-related crime in Mexico has led to its description as an insurgency or even a civil war, a conceptual move that draws on recent studies that have associated civil war with large-scale criminality. By questioning both the “crime as civil war” and “civil war as crime” models, I argue that instead of folding the two phenomena, we should draw primarily from the micro-dynamics of civil war research program to identify areas of potentially productive cross-fertilization. I point to four such areas, namely, onset and termination, organization, combat and violence, and governance and territory. I conclude by sketching a theoretical and empirical agenda for the study of large-scale organized crime. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:31:31Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:f625e5af-2da3-4b9d-863b-a1f462d23d6f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:31:31Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f625e5af-2da3-4b9d-863b-a1f462d23d6f2022-03-27T12:32:51ZHow Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do NotJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:f625e5af-2da3-4b9d-863b-a1f462d23d6fEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordSAGE Publications2015Kalyvas, SNLarge-scale organized crime occupies a gray zone between ordinary crime and political violence. The unprecedented scale of drug-related crime in Mexico has led to its description as an insurgency or even a civil war, a conceptual move that draws on recent studies that have associated civil war with large-scale criminality. By questioning both the “crime as civil war” and “civil war as crime” models, I argue that instead of folding the two phenomena, we should draw primarily from the micro-dynamics of civil war research program to identify areas of potentially productive cross-fertilization. I point to four such areas, namely, onset and termination, organization, combat and violence, and governance and territory. I conclude by sketching a theoretical and empirical agenda for the study of large-scale organized crime. |
| spellingShingle | Kalyvas, SN How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title | How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title_full | How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title_fullStr | How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title_full_unstemmed | How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title_short | How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime—and How They Do Not |
| title_sort | how civil wars help explain organized crime and how they do not |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kalyvassn howcivilwarshelpexplainorganizedcrimeandhowtheydonot |