| ID | 142494 |
| Title Proper | how civil wars help explain organized crime—and how they do not |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Kalyvas, Stathis N |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Large-scale organized crime occupies a gray zone between ordinary crime and political violence. The unprecedented scale of drug-related crime in Mexico has led to its description as an insurgency or even a civil war, a conceptual move that draws on recent studies that have associated civil war with large-scale criminality. By questioning both the “crime as civil war” and “civil war as crime” models, I argue that instead of folding the two phenomena, we should draw primarily from the micro-dynamics of civil war research program to identify areas of potentially productive cross-fertilization. I point to four such areas, namely, onset and termination, organization, combat and violence, and governance and territory. I conclude by sketching a theoretical and empirical agenda for the study of large-scale organized crime. |
| `In' analytical Note | Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 59, No.8; Dec 2015: p.1517-1540 |
| Journal Source | Journal of Conflict ResolutionVol: 59 No 8 |
| Key Words | organized crime ; Political Violence ; Civil War |