Towards a ‘new’ political anatomy of financial surveillance

Abstract

This article examines dynamics of financial surveillance and risk-based regulation in the context of ongoing activities to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Close analysis of the situation in the UK reveals entangled forms of co-regulation and ultimately co-production of surveillance that challenge ‘institutional boundaries’ of the state regarding policing and intelligence practices. It is argued that ongoing transformations in the anti-money laundering field reveal a dual movement that combines forms of indirect administration with a process of ‘neoliberal bureaucratization’. The article aims to show how current policies against ‘dirty money’ still paradoxically work on the basis of heterogeneous goals and misapprehensions between ‘professionals of security’ and ‘professionals of finance’.