The Dark Side of Globalization

Abstract

Transnational Organized Crime and International Security: Business as Usual. Edited by Mats Berdal, Monica Serrano. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002. 240 pp., $49.95 (ISBN: 1-58826-090-9). Since the end of the Cold War, scholars and practitioners have paid closer attention to transnational issues. Such things as the lowering of border controls in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and within the European Union (EU), more persistent international efforts to reduce customs and tariff barriers, the wider availability of communications and information technology, and the pervasive penetration of the Internet into all societies (including those earlier considered to be denied areas) has brought about an increasing flow of goods, services, ideas, and people across national boundaries, as well as new opportunities for trade, cultural exchange, and the potential enhancement of the quality of international life. At the same time, these phenomena have eased the way for the operations of transnational criminal organizations. In fact, this globalization of the world economy and politics has encouraged criminal organizations to become more international in outlook, to flatten their operations, to network, to outsource, and to make alliances with other criminal organizations (see, for example, Passas 1999; Viano 1999). This in turn has made it more difficult for governmental authorities to deal effectively with crime, bound as they are by legislative, bureaucratic, legal, and institutional strictures that complicate their enforcement …