Abstract
This special issue of the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development builds on a growing, multifaceted research and policy agenda that advances development perspectives of illicit economies in the Global South. Conventional policy discourses have typically framed this issue as a security problem, drawing direct and often simplistic causalities with underdevelopment. Illicit economies frequently drive violence, corruption, exploitation and failures in governance, for example. However, for many communities living in poverty and conflict-affected areas across the globe, involvement in illicit economic activity can also ameliorate the immediate problems they face. Illicit economies may provide vital sources of livelihood and underpin stable political orders and socio-economic development at the margins of the state. Broad, securitised policy responses may cause more harm than good in such contexts. Scoping the complex relationship between illicit economies and development, this introductory article outlines key themes of the special issue.
Highlights
Conventional policy discourses have typically framed illicit economies1 as a security problem and a cause of underdevelopment in the Global South
In Afghanistan, revenue from the opium-heroin trade has been linked to ongoing-conflict, corruption and political instability (US State Department 2018: 92); piracy off the Horn of Africa has been identified as a threat to international commerce and associated with terrorist financing, drug trafficking and people smuggling (UNODC 2017); in Colombia, the government has declared war against illegal gold mining, highlighting its role in environmental destruction, sustaining armed groups and inhibiting national development plans (Gagne 2015)
Mansfield (2018) highlights the case of Afghanistan and its opium-heroin trade: adherents to ‘market-based development’ orthodoxy oppose destruction of one of the few economies that functions in conflict-affected areas of the country; and development actors are unable to formulate programmes that match the socio-economic benefits of opium-heroin for rural communities in these regions
Summary
Conventional policy discourses have typically framed illicit economies1 as a security problem and a cause of underdevelopment in the Global South. The final section introduces the articles that compose the special issue, outlining their diverse empirical and analytical perspectives: from the policy landscape of international governance and the historic influence of the ‘covert netherworld’ in shaping political orders around the world, to the proliferation of falsified medicines in North and West Africa and the views of Colombian cocaleros on Bolivia’s approach to coca.
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