It was a pleasure to attend a short lecture today by Dr James Cockayne, Head of the UN University Office at the United Nations. James was in London as part of a lecture tour promoting his new book “Hidden Power, the Strategic Logic of Organised Crime.” I have known James since we were both at the University of Sydney in the 1990s.
The other key contributor was Bianca Jinga, Governance Advisor, Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department, DFID.
The following are my notes – any mistakes or misinterpretation is purely mine, not those of other participants.
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James opened with a lovely scenario voiced by James Woolsey, the former Director of the CIA:
If you should strike up a conversation with an articulate English speaking Russian gentlemen in the restaurant of a lovely hotel by the shores of Lake Geneva, and he says to you “I am an executive of a trading company and I would like to enter into a joint venture with you,” then there are four possibilities: the first possibility is that that’s exactly what he is, the second possibility is he is a Russian intelligence officer working under commercial cover, the third possibility is that he is a member of a Russian organized crime group and the fourth, and most interesting possibility, is that he is all of these things and all of these institutions are perfectly happy with that arrangement.
The question considered by James is “How does organised crime compete with and compare to legitimate and elected structures, in its projection of power and in the provision of ‘government’?”
His book attempts to make sense of the problem at both the conceptual and empirical level.
Traditionally, organised crime has not been thought of as the object of legitimate analysis – they are, after all, seeking profit, not power. But looking at specific cases, these prove otherwise. For example, Francisco Mannoia, who commented that prior to his involvement with the Cosa Nostra, he was a nobody. But afterwards, “heads bowed”. Hence, particularly in some organised criminal groups, the development of power is important.
Certain criminal groups develop governmental power. In some cases, organised crime develops a hidden governmentality, extended over formal politics, the so-called “upper world”. Hence the upper- and under-world, under certain circumstances, compete to provide a single market for government. There is a range of providers seeking to win consumers.
James’ book seeks to define 6 ideal positioning strategies which organised crime has used in this field. Several stood out:
Intermediation, for which the group heard a concrete example. In 1942, in the middle of WWII, the French vessel SS Normandie was seized by the USA, renamed USS Lafayette, and conversion began to refit her as a troop transport. However, in early Feb 1942, whilst being refitted, it burnt to its hull line, and sank, kiling 1 and injurying 142. Fear rose within US naval intelligence, that saboteurs, possibly in the form of Italian-American actors in the US, were involved. Sensing real danger, the Navy sent agents to the docks to discover what had happened. They were, however, told nothing at the docks, as the Mafia were in total control. In order to make some headway, US Naval Intelligence developed (the well-named) ‘Underworld’ project. They recruited the key Mafia boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano, then currently in prison. By working with the Mafia, the US government was able to extend its power into a space it typically couldn’t reach. US Naval agents were ultimately placed on fishing fleets, and were able to intimidate dock labour and the press. This was classic Mafia strategy – intermediation – where the Mafia acts as a broker the state and a space into which the government had a problem enforcing its power.
Joint Ventures, or mergers, where political and criminal organisations are vertically integrated. Examples include Salvatore Lima’s control of Palermo, and, in Cuba, Fulgencio Batista’s relationship with the American Mafia. In cases such as these, military appointments can be based partly on control of local vice markets, as well as the genuine military need.
Another key quote from James was this:
Criminals have real agency in the development of government power and its projection internationally.
He discussed the direct parallels with corporations’ strategies, such as the so-called “blue ocean strategy” (exit a blood-filled competitive market, and go elsewhere).
Some criminal organisations seek to influence power and develop it even internationally. They don’t seek formal political responsibility, but political power. This is exercised by building legitimacy.
As an important corollary, if we treat these organisations and their activities only through typical criminal prosecution means (which certainly are necessary), these are likely to not be sufficient in combating organised crime.
There is a blurring of state craft and state strategy. At a geo-economic level, the way we have set up global financial systems creates incentives for all players (criminal or legitimate) to extract ‘rents’ and then move these into the financial cloud where they not subject to criminal law. This is power without responsibility.
It was then Ms Jinga’s turn to take the stand. In her role for DFID, it was important, she said, that development professionals should care about organised crime too.
Gains have certainly been made in development in recent years, but these have typically been made in a stable environment. But in fragile states, it ‘s a flat line: no progress. When engaging in fragile and conflicted states, it is important to help states gain legitimacy in the eyes of its population, to build stability.
So what builds stable development in these markets? Among other factors, organised crime is another actor which needs to be understood; how does it engage with the state? What even is the role of and the definition of the state? Does it take responsibility, does it build legitimacy? Challenging questions for the development community.
Development needs to de-legitimise criminal mentality. Successes here have included investing in social media and investigative journalism, and disrupting the ‘normalisation of violence’. And also going ‘beyond the state’ (by which we mean beyond a single state) to engage with societies, and the global governance systems which regulate these environments.
There is a development response to all these challenges, but it is not articulated fully yet. It is rather challenging, when a development agency’s business model is “state-by-state”, but where a lot of the value chains in these organised crime enterprises span many jurisdictions/internationally.
A Q&A section followed. A specific question from an attendee from the MoD moved the conversation to consider Mexico specifically. The Sinaloa and Zetas criminal syndicates’ differing responses to their environment and capabilities were made clear. “Sinaloa uses an intermediate strategy, when creating service provision. But Zetas is different. Zetas are ex-soldiers. They have a much more forceful approach, taking control of and trying to govern their territories. They then expand the criminal markets to trafficking, criminal mining, drug production. Coercion, fear and terrorisation of local communities play a big part.”
So it is interesting to consider how strategies for a single organised crime syndicate are developed in competition with the other organised crime groups in the region.
And, to finish, a warning from Mexico, for policy-makers:
Just like Coke and Pepsi, Sinaloa and Zetas are expanding their theatre of competition to new markets – Guatemala in this case. Borders are not hard delineating lines – we need to be careful of that, for our policy response.
More information on James’ book is available on his website. I would like to thank The International Institute for Strategic Studies for organising and hosting the lecture.