Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime

Hidden Power:The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime
by James Cockayne

Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date:2016-10-01

ISBN-10: 0190627336

ISBN-13: 9780190627331

Language: English

Pages:496
Added:2017-04-23 13:56:11
Categories:
Biography & Autobiography > Criminals & Outlaws
Political Science > History & Theory
Social Science > Criminology
Description:
What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia?
Drawing on unpublished govement documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for govemental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming govemental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US govement to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and gove Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis