Incorporating serious organised crime into understandings of elite bargains & political settlements
Project Completed
PROJECT TEAM
Alina Rocha Menocal
Overseas Development Institute
Thinking & Working Politically Community of Practice
Contact: a.rochamenocal@bham.ac.uk or a.rochamenocal@odi.org.uk
Originally from Mexico, Alina is an internationally recognised expert on politics and governance with two decades of experience working to bridge the gap between research and policy in thinking about governance from a political economy perspective, as well as to inform more effective engagement and ways of working among international development actors in developing country settings. Her areas of expertise include democracy/ democratisation and the challenges of multiple dimensions of institutional transformation; political settlements and the politics of inclusion; state- and peace-building and (post-)conflict trajectories; conflict and fragility; women’s empowerment; citizen voice and accountability; and corruption and anti-corruption efforts.
PROJECT SUMMARY
This research builds on previous work on how states and societies that are in the throes of violent conflict can evolve from exclusionary political systems anchored in narrow pacts and agreements among elites (or what is referred to in the literature as “elite bargains”) into more peaceful, open, representative and inclusive political systems in the longer term (see the synthesis report). An important insight from that research was that organised crime actors remain a significant gap in the evidence base on elite bargains and political settlements (or the ‘rules of the game’, both on paper and how they are applied in practice, that determine how power and resources are organised and distributed) – even though they have been shown to have a profound impact on the nature and quality of the political order that emerges “post-conflict”.
This project aims to address this gap by drawing together a rich body of literature on organised crime and its impact on conflict, violence, governance and development to articulate how SOC can be more thoroughly integrated into analysis of elite bargains and the prospects for fostering more peaceful, open and inclusive politics. This is essential to engage in peace-building efforts more effectively.
Perhaps the most important insight to emerge from the wider literature on organised crime and politics for peace- and state-building efforts is evidence showing that there are rarely clear and neat distinctions between SOC and the state. Far from being outliers, SOC actors are a systemic element of governance and state-making in all sorts of settings undergoing processes of transformation, including from violent conflict to peace and from authoritarian rule to democracy. State penetration, or the deliberate infiltration of the state to exercise influence and control, is a core focus of criminal groups as they seek to pursue their activities and maintain order.
The research outlines five critical elements where a more purposeful integration of serious organised crime actors is essential for improved political analysis and strategy development. These include:
Elites: The relevant economic, political, social actors in a given bargain, what the balance of power between different elites is, what shapes their interests and behaviours, and how they relate to different constituencies.
Violence and prospects for peace and stability: Violence may not simply be the reflection of political crisis, but a core characteristic of the very making, functioning and reproduction of a political system – so it can be a defining mechanism for building order and stability. It is therefore essential to understand what the role of SOC actors has been in generating and/or contributing to violence, for what purposes and to what effect.
The state: The ways in which the state operates at the local and national level, both formally and informally, cannot be fully understood without looking at how organised crime interacts with it. A greater recognition of how SOC affects how the state works can be especially useful in terms of problematising linear notions of both state capacity and political will. The problem may not always be one of state weakness, which tends to be the assumption in mainstream development thinking on conflict and fragility. In certain instances, where, for example, there is a high degree of collusion between SOC and state actors, elite incentives across the criminal-political spectrum may well be to maintain weak formal institutions.
Legitimacy: state authorities are not the sole repositories of legitimacy, and non-state actors often compete for legitimacy, through for instance the provision of services like security. Another important dimension of legitimacy is how different groups respond to SOC and the criminal-political nexus. Responses can range from violence –e.g. paramilitary groups – to disillusionment with political elites that are seen as irredeemably corrupt – and these often reflect a profound distrust in the state, while they can also lead to polarisation and fragmentation.
Electoral politics: One of the most significant ways in which SOC infiltrates political systems is through electoral politics, including political parties and elections, at the national and especially the local level. This has a profound impact on the quality of democracy and representation, including in terms of which actors have greater weight and influence in a given political system and why – with important implications for prospects for more inclusive politics.
Overall, organised crime needs to be understood as part and parcel of transformed power relations and ongoing economic, political and social processes of contestation and bargaining between a range of different actors to define the ‘rules of the game’, in order to develop a fuller, deeper and more fine-grained picture of how things work in practice. Failure to take SOC into account more explicitly and consistently in understanding elite bargains and political settlements risks developing misguided assumptions or diagnoses of what is going on in a particular setting, and increases the potential to generate unintended consequences and do harm.
PUBLICATIONS
ENGAGEMENT
-
Alina presented the research at a workshop organised by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue on ‘Strengthening Peacemaking to Deal with Criminal Actors and Agendas’ (29 November 2022).
The research was shared in a closed-door roundtable organised by ODI on ‘Navigating life under criminal group control’ (6 December 2022) .