Research Catalog

Title

Gangster states : organized crime, kleptocracy and political collapse / Katherine Hirschfeld, Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma, USA.

Author

Hirschfeld, Katherine

Publication

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Supplementary Content

Cover image

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 176 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"Gangsterism, extortion and racketeering are currently viewed as deviant, pathological behaviors that are disconnected from formal political and economic structures, and often excluded from analysis in the fields of political science and economics. A critical reconsideration of organized crime reveals that the evolution of racketeering in systems of exchange should be understood as a natural phenomenon that can be predicted with tools from behavioral ecology originally developed to model the dynamics of predator-prey relations. These models predict the conditions under which unregulated markets evolve into hierarchical criminal syndicates, and how established organized crime groups expand and intrude into formal systems of government, creating chimeric 'gangster-states'. This book outlines the parameters of this process, and uses archival research to explore case studies of organized crime and kleptocratic state formation. A final section proposes redefining state formation as part of a longitudinal cycle of political-economic evolution that includes phases of racketeering, instability, collapse and regeneration"--

Series Statement

International political economy series

Uniform Title

International political economy series (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))

Subjects

• Failed states
• Political corruption
• Organized crime
• Racketeering

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Secret Vices -- 1.2 What is Organized Crime? -- 1.3 Evolutionary Stable Strategies -- 1.4 Case Study: Post-Soviet Russia -- 1.5 Gangs as Primitive States -- 1.6 Collapse and Regeneration -- 1.7 Darwinian Political Economy -- 2. What is Organized Crime? -- 2.1 Formal Verses Informal Economies -- 2.2 Organized Crime as Racketeering -- 2.3 Descriptive Vignette: Camorra -- 2.4 The Organization of Crime -- 2.5 Racketeering in Prison Economies -- 2.6 The Organization of a Stateless Campus Economy -- 2.7 Labor Rackets -- 2.8 Gambling Rackets -- 2.9 Prohibition -- 3. Failing Economics -- 3.1 Contaminated Markets -- 3.2 The Cold War in Economic Thinking -- 3.3 The Road to Friedmanistan -- 3.4 Experimental Vignette: The Other Invisible Hand -- 4. The Evolution of Racketeering -- 4.1 Behavioral Economics Meets Behavioral Ecology -- 4.2 Evolutionary Stable Strategies -- 4.3 Cheating and Systemic Complexity -- 4.4 Racketeering as an Evolutionary Stable Strategy -- 4.5 ESS Thinking: Farming and Raiding -- 4.6 From Raiding to Protection Rackets -- 4.7 Supply and Demand -- 4.8 The Geography of Protection -- 4.9 Narrative Vignette: Raiding and Trading on the Steppes -- 5. Organized Crime and Kleptocracy -- 5.1 From Gangs to Primitive States -- 5.2 The Underworld as Prehistory -- 5.3 Territoriality, Leadership, Violence -- 5.4 Prehistoric Gangster-States -- 5.5 Early European Gangster-States -- 5.6 Mafia Branding: The Exquisite Corpse -- 5.7 Narrative Vignette: Under the Cartels -- 5.8 The Gangsterization of Democracy -- 5.9 Scenes from a Kleptocracy -- 5.10 Cuba Case Study -- 5.11 Comparative Vignettes -- 5.12 Hispañola -- 5.13 Haiti -- 5.14 Zaire -- 5.15. Post-Soviet Gangster-States -- 5.16 Narrative Vignette: After the USSR -- 5.17 Post Script: American Exceptionalism? -- 6. Things Fall Apart ... and Rebuild -- 6.1 Collapse as Conundrum -- 6.2 Progress and Underdevelopment -- 6.3 The State as Exaptation -- 6.4 Secondary State Formation in Prehistory -- 6.5 Collapse and Regeneration -- 6.6 Grey Zones and Demapping -- 6.7 Yugoslavia/Bosnia -- 6.8 USSR/Moldova/Transnistria -- 7. Darwinian Political Economy -- 7.1 Research Redux -- 7.2 Evolutionary Stable Strategies -- 7.3 Darwinian Political Economy.

Call Number

JFD 16-2298

ISBN

• 9781137490285
• 1137490284
• 9781137490292 (PDF ebook) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2015001719

OCLC

893451572

Author

Hirschfeld, Katherine, author.

Title

Gangster states : organized crime, kleptocracy and political collapse / Katherine Hirschfeld, Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma, USA.

Publisher

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

International political economy series

International political economy series (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Connect to:

Cover image

View this book online, via VLeBooks, both on- and off-campus

Other Form:

ebook version 9781137490292

Research Call Number

JFD 16-2298