Nexus - 0703 - New Times Magazine-pages

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offer a virulent breeding ground for the drug industry, as increas- Since the end of the Cold War, the "peace dividend" to a large ingly people seek and find in it a way to alleviate economic dis- extent has been absorbed by assigning new tasks to coercive state tress and/or fund their nationalist struggle through criminal enter- agencies. In many countries, this was given shape by a rise in prise (e.g., Kurdistan, Chechnya, Kosovo). expenditure for internal coercion, whereas the cost of defence is Globalisation has also fostered the expansion of networks and increasingly legitimised by the proclaimed need to counter new illegal transactions over the globe. Migratory diasporas link rela- external threats. In this process, police forces especially have tively poor, drug-producing countries to consumer markets with increased their size, their resources and their legal powers. In far greater spending power. Financial technology makes it easier many countries, the military has also been given tasks in drug to hide the proceeds of crime, and increasing trade in general is repression. The United States in the 1980s and 1990s sufficiently likely to enhance the opportunities for smuggling and fraud. amended the Posse Comitatus Act—which since 1878 had pre- Like transnational enterprises, some criminal entrepreneurs in vented military involvement in civil law enforcement—to engage more organised forms extend their transnational operations and in drug law enforcement at home and abroad (Bagley, 1992:130, the degree to which their authority in world society and the world Drug War facts). But also the Dutch, British and French navies economy rivals and encroaches upon that of governments are patrolling the Caribbean to interdict drug shipments. (Strange, 1996:110). Mafias, like the Italian N'Drangheta, Globalisation and liberalisation thus go hand in hand with new Camorra and Cosa Nostra, the American Cosa Nostra, the efforts directed at the control and regulation of markets, institu- Colombian drug cartels, the Chinese Triads, the Japanese Yakuza tions and societies—notably, those related to illegal drugs and and, more recently, many more-or-less migration and, to a lesser extent, those con- nationally or ethnically based organisa- trolling capital flows (Andreas, 1995). Some tions from former Eastern Bloc countries of these control mechanisms lie in the remit of are only the most commonly known exam- state agencies. However, there is also a ten- ples of criminal networks extending their Fi A dency to hive-off part of the control responsi- activities over the globe. Amongst each Like transnational bilities to other levels of political authority as other they either compete for markets or enterprises, some well as to the private sector (Johnston, 1992). establish ways to cooperate in their activi- + wnt Most striking may be a shift from the use of ties. Drugs may or may not be their most criminal entrepreneurs administrative law to criminal law for the renal Prod as here in many in more organised forms maintenance or order in society and the other legal and illegal activities (arms traf- . . preservation of national security in general. ficking, prostitution, extortion, etc.) that extend their transnational Internal and external security concerns so often nea mur longer record of proven operations to the deg ree become tnereasingly blurred, and therewith profitability. These activities not only . oer the tasks assigned to coercive state agencies to offer them quick profits, but also the that their authority In protect the sovereignty of the state. means to exert political power. world society and The challenges to national sovereignty Organising their resources helps posed by the consequences of globalisa- some drug entrepreneurs to establish the world economy tion have led many governments to a power structure to protect rivals and encroaches believe that the traditional system for the upon that of governments. themselves, to challenge the organisation of criminal justice policy— authority of states in specific areas or the system of individual states—no even to supplant or penetrate the longer suffices to deal with new prob- power of elites controlling a state. lems of international crime (Anderson ef Such developments ultimately may al., 1995:40). Extending and interna- also endanger other sectors of tionalising state powers, political pres- society and the social body in sures and foreign interventions in a general, where progressively the rule state's sovereignty, as well as a growing of law and formally regulated share of populations imprisoned on relations between states, markets and drug-related charges, lead many people societies give way to informal arrangements, corruption, violence to perceive law enforcement itself as a threat to liberal society. and intimidation. Out of the more than one million [now two million; Ed.] people Such consequences might, however, be brought about more by serving terms in United States state prisons, about 59.9 per cent the fact that their activities are illegal, than that their organisations are casual and non-violent drug offenders (Akida, 1997:607). In are criminal. More than the leverage power that organised crime the United States, of every 100,000 inhabitants, 641 are in prison; can attain, it is their untouchability—which comes with the in The Netherlands, this figure is 'only' 65 in 100,000 (Belenko, internationalisation of their activities—that makes them such a 1998).? threat to a state's authority. It is my assertion that where drug The "Americanisation" of the "War on Drugs" is also taking entrepreneurial networks cannot be incorporated in local or shape in Europe and other countries. International conventions, national political and economic arrangements, their impact on mutual assistance treaties and institutional mechanisms, set up society becomes much more detrimental—a situation that is only under the three pillars of the European integration process, com- worsened as the state increasingly resorts to criminalisation and bine with quickly expanding informal networks among police repressive means to control their activities. In this context, we agencies intended to intensify the suppression of the drug scourge can see a seemingly contradictory increase in both the importance (Sheptycki, 1996). of specific criminal or criminalised activities and the coercive Important changes in the international political and economic powers of states (police, military, customs agencies, fiscal and system that accelerated in the last decade or two, have offered intelligence apparatuses). unprecedented opportunities for legal and illegal trade and for the the world economy rivals and encroaches upon that of governments. 30 + NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2000 Like transnational