Transnational Crime and Black Spots

This book explores how transnational criminal, insurgent, and terrorist organizations have exploited globalization to develop a parallel illicit economy and governance system. Examining the world through their eyes, it readjusts standard geopolitical notions of international relations. The authors show how these organizations' safe havens-or black spots-facilitate their activities by insuring the absence of state governance and regulation. Like black markets and pirate sanctuaries, black spots defy the Westphalian state system. Using detailed case studies of 80 such black spots worldwide, Brown and Hermann illustrate how such entities produce, transport, and distribute illicit goods and services by maintaining their own networks and governance structures. In doing so, they provide policymakers, law enforcement, and the academic community with new information on which to base strategies for understanding and dealing with black spots and the illicit organizations that govern them. In addition, this innovative and timely work is relevant for students and scholars of international relations, international law and global governance, international political economy, national security policy, non-state actors, post-conflict reconstruction, business strategy, and the economics of agglomeration.