Violent Entrepreneurs Research Articles

Refugees in Trans-Border Conflict: The Case of Sierra Leone, 1991–2002

The victimization of refugees in the recipient communities has been broadly explored, especially in the context of West African civil wars, however the role refugees had in armed violence against local population and in the maintenance of the regional conflict economy requires further research. In this article, the author examines matters of refugee involvement in a civil war ravaging the recipient country based on the case of Sierra Leone conflict (1991–2002) and role that Liberian refugees played at the outset and different periods of war. The primary aim of this study is to determine the extent to which the role refugees played in the Sierra Leone conflict went beyond the traditional perception of refugee victimhood, the transformation of their involvement in war and the influence of the various regional and extra-regional forces. The existing academic literature on conflict in Sierra Leone is evaluated in accordance with the topic in focus and the extent to which this national experience can be applied to a broader set of regional wars. The role of refugees in trans-border economy is appraised in the theoretical framework of conflict support networks elaborated by William Reno and Jennifer Hazen using the functional analysis methodology treating civil wars as dynamic, with shifting intentions and roles of parties considered. Overall, the article provides additional angle in appraisal of the conflicts in West Africa and the cases of refugees’ involvement in these wars. The Liberian refugees had a changing active role in the conflict, gradually getting entangled in hostilities, illicit actions and violent entrepreneurship, turning from the victims of regional wars with their grievances into the destabilizing force for the recipient state of Sierra Leone and the entire region. The article is based on the materials of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, reports of international humanitarian organizations and documentation of the relevant state structures.

Checkpoint urbanism: Violent infrastructures and border stigmas in the Juárez border region

As Popitz (2017) argues, violence is one component of the great economy of world history, an option permanently open to human activity. In Ciudad Juárez, right at the border between the United States and Mexico, this notion explains the fundamental incongruity that characterises the region: a booming industrial productive model operating in parallel with an international crime and violence hotspot that is also a coveted criminal passageway. This paper will argue that official and criminal checkpoints designed for border-crossing, have had a transformative spatial role when considered across the dimensions of infrastructure and stigma, triggering a material/symbolic tension. We argue that their location and accessibility determine the exposure of nearby communities to economic growth but also violent entrepreneurship – the illegal crossing of goods and people still remains a constant characteristic of the region, not only as part of a criminal enterprise but as a viable livelihood. The ways in which the region of Juárez develops and grows also determines how trafficking and illegal practices are established; rules and regulations that provide territorial parameters for what is open and transparent are equally referential to what is clandestine and devious. The tensions brought by the border’s geopolitical value have amplified the value of infrastructure and its practical ownership. The international border operates as a line that is barrier, social divider, landmark, policy-bridge, filtering mechanism and trafficking obstacle. Under this permanent state of tension, the checkpoints provide a physical structure to the transit flows and a sovereign interruption. Across this urbanism, the checkpoint surroundings acquire a magnetic significance, due to the resulting transit dynamics and the surveillance deterrents at the core of their function. Furthermore, their dual nature – official and criminal – has branded the region as a criminal outpost, stigmatising the people inhabiting it, and perpetuating the idea that Juárez is defined by its violent infrastructures.

Explaining Violence in Tillabéri: Insurgent Appropriation of Local Grievances?

ABSTRACT The Tillabéri region in Niger has quickly lapsed into a state of violence and come under the control of ‘violent entrepreneurs’ – that is, non-state armed actors possessing some kind of political agenda, which is implemented in tandem with different types of income-generating activities. Violent entrepreneurs rule by force and violence, but they also distribute resources, provide some level of order and offer protection to (at least parts of) the population in the areas they control, or attempt to control. In many local communities in peripheral areas of the Sahel, these violent entrepreneurs have a stronger presence than international community actors and their national allies. This situation is partly the result of spill-over effects from the war in Mali and local herder-farmer conflicts, but the key factors are the ability of jihadi insurgents to appropriate local grievances and the failure of the state to resist this.

The Dangers of Disconnection: Oscillations in Political Violence on Lake Chad

ABSTRACT Narrations on fragility and resilience in the Sahel paint a picture about the region’s inherent ungovernability that lead to consider an endless state- and peace-building process as the most feasible governance solution. Everyday practices of violent entrepreneurship, coalescing with inter-community and land-tenure conflicts, now inform social relations and are transforming moral economies around Lake Chad. While competition over territory suitable for farming, grazing and fishing has intensified, dispute-settlement practices organised by community-level authorities have proven ineffective and lacking the necessary means to respond to the encroachment of a wide range of interests claimed by increasingly powerful actors. Meanwhile, communities organised in self-defence militias are undergoing a process of progressive militarisation that tends to normalise violence and legitimise extra-judicial vigilante justice, further empowering capital-endowed arms suppliers gravitating in the jihadi galaxy, such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Терроризм и экономика

The article analyzes some aspects of the financial foundations of modern terrorism, considers sources of funding terrorist organization and movements, highlights the factors affecting the development of this phenomenon, presents the author´s view on the issue of "terrorist" finances. The authors substantiate that economic factors are the terrorism foundation, in this regard terrorist activity as an economic category is considered in two aspects: financing of separated terrorist acts and in general the terrorist ideology and practice. Some of the "traditional" options for the legalization of criminal incomes by terrorists are described. The specifics of terrorist economy as rule is that criminals for illegal activity usually get income in the form of cash. However, traditional use of cash for terrorist purposes in the current conditions takes second place and supplanted by developing non-cash financial instruments. The article distinguishes the financial and organizational factors that are favorable for terrorist activities, analyzes connection and interaction of terrorism and economic and financial spheres from the perspective of the "violent entrepreneurship" theory. Violent entrepreneurship is defined as a set of solutions and strategies, allowing to convert permanently an organized force in the cash income and other benefits that have market value. The authors offer the three-stage financial model of a terrorist attack. The first stage is advancement of political, economic and other requirements with the threat to paralyze the whole economic system of the country in case of their failure. The second stage includes demonstrational attack (or its threat) to a single economic structure and paralyzation of its actions. The third stage is repetition of requirements in a more rigid form relying on the effect of real or possible demonstration of force. In conclusion, the authors forecasts the future economic goals of global terrorism. Currently, the problem of financial and economic terrorism cannot be separated from the information, and in the future, information terrorism will focus on the global economy.

Exploiting Anarchy: Violent Entrepreneurs and the Collapse of Libya's Post-Qadhafi Settlement

Little more than a year ago a knowledgeable observer heralded Libya as a ‘potential beacon of the Arab transition’ (Wehrey, 2013, p. 121). Macro-social factors such as ethno-religious homogeneity, ...

Xenophobia, Criminality and Violent Entrepreneurship: Violence against Somali Shopkeepers in Delft South, Cape Town, South Africa

ABSTRACT Violence against Somali shopkeepers is often cited as evidence of xenophobic attitudes and violence in South Africa. However, as argued in this article, it is not necessarily the case that such violence is driven by anti-foreigner sentiment. Instead, as illustrated in the case of Delft, a poor, mixed-race area in the City of Cape Town, violence against spaza shopkeepers may also be explained in terms of criminal activities and economic competition in the form of ‘violent entrepreneurship’. This argument is made drawing on a survey of over 100 spaza shopkeepers, a household survey, police statistics, and interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders living in Delft. The key insight is that despite a recent history of intense economic competition in the spaza market in which foreign skopkeepers have come to dominate, levels of violent crime against foreign shopkeepers, 80 per cent of whom are Somali, are not significantly higher than against South African shopkeepers. In addition, while South African shopkeepers openly resent the Somali advent, most consumers remain indifferent to their presence and certainly prefer the lower prices. While our findings cannot be generalised beyond this case, they do alert us to the importance of locating arguments about xenophobia in the wider context of crime and violence in South Africa, as well as paying close attention to the local particularities that can turn general sentiment into xenophobic action.

Государство и бандиты: драма с прологом и эпилогом

Государство и бандиты: драма с прологом и эпилогом

The Kazan Leviathan: Russian Street Gangs as Agents of Social Order

This article discusses the evolution of street gangs in the Russian city of Kazan. Using historic and interview data, it shows that the changes in the social organization of these gangs were a reaction to a series of systemic crises in the Soviet and post-Soviet social order. As a result of power deficits, emerging in the space of the streets and in the larger society, the gangs moved through several stages: a) youth peer groups acting out traditional prescriptions of masculine socialisation; (b) territorial ‘elite’ formations; (c) ‘violent entrepreneurs’ and (d) autonomous ruling regimes. The article demonstrates that the gangs, while utilising violence to achieve their projects of social and economic domination, may also regulate its use. It argues that the gangs can be seen as historic agents participating in ground-level social regulation, and not simply products and producers of social disorder.

Criminal Violence and Democratization in Central America: The Survival of the Violent State

AbstractWhy does Nicaragua have less violent crime than Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras? All these countries underwent political transitions in the 1990s. Many explanations point to the legacies of war, socioeconomic underdevelopment, and neoliberal structural reforms. However, these arguments do not fully explain why, despite economic reforms conducted throughout the region, war-less Honduras and wealthier Guatemala and El Salvador have much more crime than Nicaragua. This article argues that public security reforms carried out during the political transitions shaped the ability of the new regimes to control the violence produced by their own institutions and collaborators. In the analysis of the crisis of public security, it is important to bring the state back. The survival of violent entrepreneurs in the new security apparatus and their relationship with new governing elites foster the conditions for the escalation of violence in northern Central America.

Stephen R. Schneider, Iced: the story of organized crime in Canada

The author is an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada. His book seeks to dispel the myth of Canada as a law-abiding society devoid of the criminal violence associated with the country's southern neighbor. He certainly achieves this goal although, as he notes, Canada's violent entrepreneurs often have important connections, if not deep roots, in the United States: The Cotroni/Rizzuto "mafia" in Quebec is part of New York's Bonanno Family and the Hell's Angels, which has chapters throughout Canada, originated in California.Iced examines more than 400 years of criminal organizations ranging from Atlantic coast pirates and privateers (the distinction is often nonexistent), to the outlaws, bank robbers, and horse thieves of Canada's wild west, to modern organized crime. He provides a fascinating look at the connection between Canada's liquor industry and U.S. crime groups during the era of Prohibition. While information in the book is... Language: en

Capitalism, Violence and The State

In the Tata company town of Jamshedpur, incisive popular discourses of corruption posit a mutually beneficial relationship between ‘legitimate’ institutions and organised criminality, a dynamic believed to enable pervasive transformations in the city’s industrial and financial infrastructures. This article situates this local discourse within the wider body of anthropological work on South Asian corruption, noting a discursive departure from the hegemonic, personalised and essentially provincialising corruption models encountered by many researchers. The article interrogates the popular model of crime and corruption in Jamshedpur through a focus upon the business practices of local violent entrepreneurs, exploring the extent to which their negotiations with corrupt institutions and ‘legitimate’ capital may indeed inform their successes. Drawing analytic cues from material on organised crime in the former USSR, this article identifies a mutually beneficial relationship between political influence, violence and industrial capital in an Indian company town.

Narcophobia: drugs prohibition and the generation of human rights abuses

This paper is concerned with the negative aspects of global drugs prohibition. The paper argues that prohibition, which is driven by moralism rather than empirical research, creates a black market that is regulated by violent entrepreneurs, and particular in developing countries where there is a lack of economic opportunities for the poor, offers the only feasible employment options. The paper suggests that the results of experimental legislation should be taken seriously. The militarisation of prohibition enforcement has hindered the advancement of democracy and led to violence and increases in human rights abuses. In conclusion it is argued that the current system of global prohibition creates more problems than it solves, and that issues of drug production and trade need to be dealt with by regulation from within a development perspective.

Guns, Slums, and “Yellow Devils”: A Genealogy of Urban Conflicts in Karachi, Pakistan

Karachi is a city of migrants and an important commercial hub, which provides Pakistan with a window on the world. But Karachi is also a deeply fragmented city, plagued by an acute urban crisis that takes roots in the failure of the development plans that successive Pakistani governments have delegated to foreign experts. The transnationalisation of the Afghan jihad, in the 1980s, also fuelled social and ethnic antagonisms in the city and contributed to the proliferation of violent entrepreneurs and ethnic parties. Both criminal elements and ethnic activists contributed to the ever-increasing fragmentation of urban space in the city, and to the multiplication of ethnic enclaves controlled by private militias. This extreme fragmentation of the city has benefited local jihadis and foreign terrorists who have taken shelter here since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. However, Karachi will never be a “sanctuary” for jihadi militants, due to the hostility of local ethnic parties, whose activists see themselves as enlightened secularists at war with the most retrograde elements of their society and their foreign allies.

Book Review: Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism

Book Review: Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism

The Politics of Violent Opposition in Collapsing States

AbstractIn violent conflicts in places like Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone, economic interests have crowded out ideologically articulate mass-based social movements for reform or revolutionary change to a degree that was not apparent during earlier anti-colonial struggles. Some scholars offer a ‘looting model’ of rebellion that explains the predations of politicians and warlords but it is not clear why people who receive few benefits from this – or even suffer great harm from them – fail to support ideologues instead, or why self-interested violent entrepreneurs do not offer political programmes to attract more followers. Yet some groups defy this ‘looting model’. Explaining why armed groups vary so greatly in their behaviour provides a means to address important questions: is it possible to construct public authorities out of collapsed states in the twenty-first century, or do local predations and global conditions preclude indigenous state-building in these places? Why do social movements for reform there seem so ineffective? What conditions have to be present for them to succeed? This article considers the nature of rebellion in failing states, focusing on Nigeria to find clues to explain variations in the organization of armed groups.

Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism

Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism

Mafia und Mafiakapitalismus als totales soziales Phänomen

The article shows that Mafia in Sicily has turned from an “archaic social movement” into an overarching “structure”, that influences all spheres of social life. It further shows that some kind of Mafia-capitalism of the Italian type is to be found in Russia too. The main thesis is that Mafia is not to be understood as a “violent entrepreneurship” only but as a “total social phenomenon” in the sense of Marcel Mauss. That means that the evolution of Mafia-type networks are the result of state failure and state destruction. Mafia generates and mediates trust in situations of generalized distrust. In other words, Mafia has turned from an archaic social movement into a new mechanism of social integration, which is to be found not only in South-Italy but in several modern societies.

Plunder & Protection Inc.

When the state fails to supply basic security and protection of property, violent entrepreneurs not only seize the opportunity of plundering, but some also enter the protection business and provide protection against plunderers. This uncoordinated division of labor is advantageous for the entire group of violent entrepreneurs. Hence, in weak states a situation may arise where a large number of violent entrepreneurs can operate side by side as plunderers and protectors squeezing the producers from both sides. The problem reached new levels at the end of the Cold War. As military forces were demobilized without civilian jobs to go to, many countries got an oversupply of qualified violent people for crime, warfare, and private protection. In this `market for extortion' the entry of new violent entrepreneurs enhances the profitability of them all. The supply of violence creates its own demand - an externality of violence that is detrimental to the development in poor countries.

Gewaltunternehmer im postkommunistischen Russland

The article examines the role of violent entrepreneurship in the process of state- and market building in post-communist Russia. The crisis of the state is the reason for the boom of violent entrepreneurship that can be classified into three different types, depending on their relation to the state. Main emphasis is put on the relationship between the recently emerging forms of commercialization of violence and the criminal world. The article shows how violent commercial organizations interact with state authorities and regular business companies.