PR 1450 Introduction to Globalization

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PR 1450Introduction to Globalization

• Lecture 12
• Transnational crime and global terrorism
• Chris Rumford

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Introduction

• Events of the past few years major terrorist
  attacks in New York, Madrid and London especially
  have created an awareness of the threat of
  global terrorism, and heightened awareness of
  transnational crime

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• Global terrorism (and also the idea of the war
  on terrorism) is a very good example of how we
  come to see the world as interconnected as a
  single place
• When looking at the global dimensions of crime
  and terrorism we can draw out connections with
  work we have previously done on
• networks (Al Qaeda is often described as a
  global terror network)
• global civil society (global terrorism and
  transnational crime are sometimes described as
  the dark side of globalization or uncivil
  society)
• risk society (terrorism increases our perception
  of risk)

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Appadurai on terrorism, networks, risks, and
global civil society

• Appadurai (2006 33) describes terrorism as the
  nightmarish side of globalization
• What do you think he means by this?
• He also says that terrorism, violent action
  against public spaces and civilian populations in
  the name of antistate politics (2006 87), is
  based on a cellular (networked) form of
  organization (c.f. the vertibrate form of the
  nation-state)

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• For Appadurai, terrorism is also linked to risk
  Terror is first of all the terror of the next
  attack (2006 92)
• We do not always recognise the enemy, anyone
  can be a soldier in disguise (2006 92)
  including people stood next to us on the tube
• This echoes Becks point about risks not always
  being evident to the senses (e.g. GM food,
  radiation)
• Cellular terrorist organizations work to blur
  the lines between the enemies within and the
  enemies without (2006 108)
• There exists a freshly charged relationship
  between uncertainty in ordinary life and
  insecurity in the affairs of states (2006 101)

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London bombings and global terrorism

• For Appaduarai, the London bombers were young
  muslims who could not have failed to make
  connections between 9/11 in New York, the war in
  Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing brutalization
  of their fellow Muslims in Palestine (2006 112)
• They became terrorists because they identified
  themselves with the cellular world of global
  terror rather than the isolating world of
  national minorities
• They morphed from one kind of minority weak,
  disempowered, disenfranchised and angry to
  another kind of minority cellular, globalized,
  transnational, armed, and dangerous (2006 113)

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The cellular world

• According to Appadurai (2006 129-131), the
  cellular world has two faces
• A dark side i.e. terrorism which threatens the
  system of nation-states by eroding its overall
  monopoly over the means of large-scale
  devastation of human life, and by attacking the
  moral framework of the nation-state as a global
  form and system and threatening civilian life
  itself
• Cellular politics is also the organizational
  style of the most interesting progressive
  movements in global society which seek to
  construct a third space independent of state
  and market, and which we may call movements for
  grassroots globalization

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Civil society versus criminal networks

• Some transnational NGOs have been successful in
  combating organized crime
• For example, the Polaris Project an NGO
  started by two students in the US - has been very
  active in the fight against human trafficking
  and modern-day slavery
• www.polarisproject.org/polarisproject

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For more on some of these themes read my
article Confronting uncivil society and the
dark side of globalization (available on my
webpage)

• The paper outlines reasons why notions such as
  uncivil society or the dark side of
  globalization are not particularly helpful when
  thinking global terrorism and the September 11
  attacks in the US

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Transnational crime

• Read the Newsweek article Broken borders by
  Moises Naim, which tells us how smuggling and
  trafficking are transforming the global economy
• www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9711920/site/newsweek/

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• According to Naim (2005a 63-4) 3 things make
  contemporary trafficking worrying
• the threat posed by the goods trafficked (e.g.
  nuclear material, arms, organs)
• smuggling threatens legitimate markets (legal
  business has to comply with money laundering laws
  and respect for intellectual property)
• criminals often protected by politicians (e.g.
  Afghan state implicated in drugs trade, Chinese
  officials turn blind eye to counterfeit goods)

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• Naim (2005b 18) says that globalization has
  benefited criminals and traffickers and opened
  up bright new horizons for illicit trade
• For example, in the case of drug smugglers,
  borders are a boon for traffickers and a
  nightmare for law-enforcement agencies because
  governments often fail to cooperate effectively
  between jurisdictions. While policing remains
  national, traffickers are most effective when
  operating across borders which makes them in
  many ways better suited to todays world (Naim,
  2005b 62-3).

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Nation-state and transnational crime

• The republic of Transdniester is a region of
  Moldovia bordering Ukraine. It is renowned as a
  centre for the illegal trafficking of weapons
• It is also posing a major problem for
  neighbouring countries, and the EU
• Read Trans-border Trans-Dniester, by Simon
  Reeve, BBC News, 10 May 2005 http//news.bbc.co.u
  k/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4532267.stm

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• Transdniester is not your typical break-away
  region with deep grievances or a popular
  liberation movement. Its a family-owned and
  operated criminal smuggling enterprise The
  state is a criminal enterprise and vice versa.
  (Naim, 2005 58)
• The EU became so concerned about arms smuggling
  across the Transdniester/Ukraine border that with
  the agreement of the Moldovan and Ukrainian
  governments it began to monitor the border in
  November 2005 (providing 70 border policemen and
  customs officials).
• At this time the EU shared no border with
  Transdniester

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Beck on terrorism and risk society

• Beck says the interventions in Afghanistan and
  Iraq were unprecedented because they were the
  first wars in human history against a culturally
  generated risk (Beck, 2006 147)
• What does Beck mean by culturally generated
  risk?
• Western responses to the threat of terrorism has
  blurred distinctions between domestic and global,
  inside and outside, us and them
• Terrorist enemies are at once civil and
  military, state and non-state, territorial and
  non-territorial (Beck, 2006 152)

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• Beck has drawn strong links between terror and
  risk terror undermines citizens belief that
  the state can guarantee security
• The response to 9/11 the war on terrorism
  gives the most powerful nation on earth carte
  blanche to construct ever- changing
  representations of the enemy and to defend its
  internal security virtually anywhere on foreign
  territory with military force (2006 148)

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Conclusion towards the post-political?

• Global terrorism of the 9/11 variety is
  sometimes seen as post-political
• for not possessing political goals (such as
  seizure of state power, or claims to territory)
• for not being represented by an identifiable
  group
• for not engaging in negotiation or compromise
• for not advancing realistic goals

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• But the term post-political is not only
  reserved for terrorists. The strategy of George
  W. Bush has also been described as
  post-political
• for portraying the war on terror as a fight
  between good and evil
• for creating extra-legal forms of detention (e.g.
  Guantanamo Bay) which take the war against terror
  out of the political realm

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• According to one commentator, the ultimate
  catastrophe, emerging from the war against
  terror, is the disappearance of politics (Diken,
  2003)
• Initiatives such as Homeland Security in the US,
  Guantanamo Bay, and control orders in the UK
  are about finding apolitical solutions to
  political problems (Diken, 2003)
• What is the value of the idea of the
  post-political?
• What does it tell us about the changing nature
  of international relations?

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References

• Appadurai, A (2006) Fear of Small Numbers An
  Essay on the Geography of Anger (Duke University
  Press)
• Beck, U. (2006) The Cosmopolitan Vision (Polity)
• Diken, B. (2003) The comedy of (t)errors
• www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/papers/diken-comedy
  ofterrors.pdf
• Naim, M (2005a) Broken borders Newsweek,
  October 24
• Naim, M. (2005b) Illicit How Smugglers,
  Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global
  Economy (William Heinemann)
• Rumford, C. (2001) Confronting uncivil society
  and the dark side of globalization are
  sociological concepts up to the task?
  Sociological Research Online 6(3)