Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how separatism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries poses a paradox. On the one hand, the world is ostensibly coming together through globalization. On the other, the territorial integrity of nations appears fragile in most regions. The chapter explains that the book argues that countries torn by separatist movements since the Cold War cannot be adequately understood without an appreciation of organized crime. Far from passive by-products or trivial catalysts, mafias can play a decisive, autonomous role in shaping state-separatist relations, promoting or hindering secession, and fueling war. Transnational processes — of mafia expansion, chronic smuggling, and patrimonial governance — critically shape national processes of ethnic mobilization, border reconfiguration, and state collapse. Through a comparative historical analysis of the role of organized crime in West Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, the book examines understudied dynamics of territorial consolidation in torn states. By nourishing, infiltrating, and even co-opting governments and separatist movements, mafias have the power to mold the basic political units of the world.