The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States

The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States PDF Author: Renate Bridenthal
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785335189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
Renowned historical sociologist Charles Tilly wrote many years ago that “banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war-making all belong on the same continuum.” This volume pursues the idea by revealing how lawbreakers and lawmakers have related to one another on the shadowy terrains of power over wide stretches of time and space. Illicit activities and forces have been more important in state building and state maintenance than conventional histories have acknowledged. Covering vast chronological and global terrain, this book traces the contested and often overlapping boundaries between these practices in such very different polities as the pre-modern city-states of Europe, the modern nation-states of France and Japan, the imperial power of Britain in India and North America, Africa’s and Southeast Asia’s postcolonial states, and the emerging postmodern regional entity of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the contemporary explosion of transnational crime raises the question of whether or not the relationship of illicit to licit practices may be mutating once more, leading to new political forms beyond the nation-state.

The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States

The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States PDF Author: Renate Bridenthal
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785335189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
Renowned historical sociologist Charles Tilly wrote many years ago that “banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war-making all belong on the same continuum.” This volume pursues the idea by revealing how lawbreakers and lawmakers have related to one another on the shadowy terrains of power over wide stretches of time and space. Illicit activities and forces have been more important in state building and state maintenance than conventional histories have acknowledged. Covering vast chronological and global terrain, this book traces the contested and often overlapping boundaries between these practices in such very different polities as the pre-modern city-states of Europe, the modern nation-states of France and Japan, the imperial power of Britain in India and North America, Africa’s and Southeast Asia’s postcolonial states, and the emerging postmodern regional entity of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the contemporary explosion of transnational crime raises the question of whether or not the relationship of illicit to licit practices may be mutating once more, leading to new political forms beyond the nation-state.

Hidden Power

Hidden Power PDF Author: James Cockayne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019069470X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

Get Book Here

Book Description
What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia? Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On Corruption in America

On Corruption in America PDF Author: Sarah Chayes
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525654860
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future. “If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws. Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated.

Onassis Business History, 1924—1975

Onassis Business History, 1924—1975 PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004539891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle Onassis was the most famous shipowner of the twentieth century. He became the archetype and image of the ship-owning magnate, the symbol of Greek enterprise on a global scale. What distinguished him from the rest was that he created the shipping business of the new global era, combining the European maritime tradition and the American institutions and resources. Almost all books written on Onassis focus on his lifestyle and personal life. This is the first book examining all aspects of his multi-faceted global business activities in the shipping, airline and oil industries. It is based on the newly-formed Onassis Archive comprising thousands of new and unpublished files of his core business. Contributors are: Alexandra Papadopoulou, Amalia Pappa, Maria Damilakou, Lars Scholl, and Christos Tsakas.

Paramilitarism

Paramilitarism PDF Author: Uğur Ümit Üngör
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192558986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the deserts of Sudan to the jungles of Colombia, and from the streets of Belfast to the mountains of Kurdistan, paramilitaries have appeared in violent conflicts in very different settings. Paramilitaries are generally depicted as irregular armed organizations that carry out acts of violence against civilians on behalf of a state. In doing so, they undermine the state's monopoly of legitimate violence, while at the same time creating a breeding ground for criminal activities. Why do governments with functioning police forces and armies use paramilitary groups? This study tackles this question through the prism of the interpenetration of paramilitaries and the state. The author interprets paramilitarism as the ability of the state to successfully outsource mass political violence against civilians that transforms and traumatizes societies. It analyses how paramilitarism can be understood in global context, and how paramilitarism is connected to transformations of warfare and state-society relations. By comparing a broad range of cases, it looks at how paramilitarism has made a profound impact in a large number of countries that were different, but nevertheless shared a history of pro-government militia activity. A thorough understanding of paramilitarism can clarify the direction and intensity of violence in wartime and peacetime. The volume examines the issues of international involvement, institutional support, organized crime, party politics, and personal ties.

Gangsters and Other Statesmen

Gangsters and Other Statesmen PDF Author: Danilo Mandić
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691187878
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
How global organized crime shapes the politics of borders in modern conflicts Separatism has been on the rise across the world since the end of the Cold War, dividing countries through political strife, ethnic conflict, and civil war, and redrawing the political map. Gangsters and Other Statesmen examines the role transnational mafias play in the success and failure of separatist movements, challenging conventional wisdom about the interrelation of organized crime with peacebuilding, nationalism, and state making. Danilo Mandić conducted fieldwork in the disputed territories of Kosovo and South Ossetia, talking to mobsters, separatists, and policymakers in war zones and along major smuggling routes. In this timely and provocative book, he demonstrates how globalized mafias shape the politics of borders in torn states, shedding critical light on an autonomous nonstate actor that has been largely sidelined by considerations of geopolitics, state-centered agency, and ethnonationalism. Blending extensive archival sleuthing and original ethnographic data with insights from sociology and other disciplines, Mandić argues that organized crime can be a fateful determinant of state capacity, separatist success, and ethnic conflict. Putting mafias at the center of global processes of separatism and territorial consolidation, Gangsters and Other Statesmen raises vital questions and urges reconsideration of a host of separatist cases in West Africa, the Middle East, and East Europe.

Corruption in the Iberian Empires

Corruption in the Iberian Empires PDF Author: Christoph Rosenmüller
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082635825X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
The contributors use fresh archival research from Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, and the Philippines to examine the lives of slaves and farmworkers as well as self-serving magistrates, bishops, and traders in contraband.

Corrupt Circles

Corrupt Circles PDF Author: Alfonso W. Quiroz
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press
ISBN: 9780801891281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 556

Get Book Here

Book Description
The pervasiveness of corruption has been aided by the readiness of both Peruvians and the international community to turn a blind eye.

A Companion to Medieval Toledo

A Companion to Medieval Toledo PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004380515
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Companion to Medieval Toledo. Reconsidering the Canons explores the limits of “Convivencia” through new and problematized readings of material familiar to specialists and offers a thoughtful initiation for the non-specialist into the historical, cultural, and religious complexity of the iconic city of Toledo. The volume seeks to understand the history and cultural heritage of the city as a result of fluctuating coexistence. Divided into three themed sections,- the essays consider additional material, new transcriptions, and perspectives that contribute to more nuanced understandings of traditional texts or events. The volume places this cultural history and these new readings into current scholarly debates and invites its readers to do the same.

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3 PDF Author: Alena Ledeneva
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1800086148
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 669

Get Book Here

Book Description
For a post-human hitchhiker, human life – with its anxiety, ageing, illness and constant need for problem-solving – may look unviable. Yet, for humans, the life struggle is softened by human touch, human emotion and human cooperation. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3 continues the journey of the two previous volumes into the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. It focuses on issues of emotional ambivalence and pressures of the digital age. The informal practices presented in this volume demonstrate the urgency of alleviating tensions between continuity and all-too-rapid change and the need to tackle the central problem of modern societies – uncertainty. The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall. Praise for The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3 ‘This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming the system.’ Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind ‘Alena Ledeneva’s latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.’ Lucy Ash, journalist