European Arms Industries in the 1980s: A Study in Corporate Crime

Abstract

U.S. scholarship on corporate and governmental illegality has often drawn examples from the U.S. defense industry, but comparative and international examples have not been widely used. European defense corporations have likewise been involved in extensive abuses and criminal activities, which have often involved the illegal export of weapons to prohibited destinations. This is illustrated by the massive sanctions violations perpetrated by arms manufacturers during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, when a clandestine corporate network emerged to meet the illicit demand for weapons. This study considers the economic and political roots of the widespread corporate deviance that was apparent in those years and further emphasizes the parallels between that situation and instances of organized or syndicate criminality.