Mark Shaw
Biographic Data
| ID | 3592104 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark Shaw |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Shaw |
| SIGNATURE | SHAW M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6651-8801 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 73 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Future UN Response to Transnational Organised Crime
Mark Shaw and Ian Tennant assess the evolution, achievements and shortcomings of the UN’s response to transnational organised crime, drawing on historical phases of implementation. They argue that existing approaches have failed to have the desired impact. Renewed political will, institutional reform and more flexible, evidence-driven cooperation are essential if the UN system is to respond effectively in a worsening global security environment
The world seems ripe for policy change–But how to achieve it
What Could an Asymmetrical Strategy Against Organised Crime Look Like? A Lesson from the Drug Policy Debate
The debate regarding the ideal response to organised crime is quickly evolving, although it remains often remarkably disconnected from the even more rapidly moving discussion on drugs. One important connection between these two debates is the application of a similar set of terminology – namely that of harm reduction. Harm reduction focuses on examining policy responses in ways which both highlight prevention and individual and community impacts,…
Getting angry with honest people’: The illicit market for immigrant ‘papers’ in Cape Town, South Africa
South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials ‘seem to get angry with honest people’, shared a Congolese immigrant from the Kivu region who now resides in Cape Town. Some DHA officials get money through illicit transactions for ‘papers’ and they become visibly frustrated with immigrants who try to obtain documents by lawful means. While there has been much focus on xenophobia associated with immigration in South Africa, there has been …
A tale of two cities: Mafia control, the night time entertainment economy and drug retail markets in Johannesburg and Cape Town, 1985–2015
Extortion and violence associated with drug markets in the night time club industry in Johannesburg and Cape Town provide contrasting cases of how mafia groups begin to form and then evolve. In Johannesburg a protection economy, run by a white ‘bouncer mafia’ developed around the distribution of drugs in nightclubs. After significant conflict between these groups, one achieved dominance before being displaced non-violently by emergent Nigerian cr…
A Flawed War: Rethinking ‘Green Militarisation’ in the Kruger National Park
Drawing on both a historical analysis of wildlife conservation in South Africa and the experience of other countries in Africa in countering wildlife poaching, some scholars have labelled the process of responding to rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park as 'green militarisation'. The term is broadly employed to denote the use of military-style techniques and approaches, as well as the military itself, in countering poaching. Several propone…
The Commercialization of Assassination: Hits’ and Contract Killing in South Africa, 2000–2015
Targeted killings or ‘hits’ have become a feature of South Africa's political economy, both licit and illicit. Given their current and potential impact they are understudied. In this article, we present data for hits for a 16-year period from 2000 to 2015. Hits represent the application of targeted violence aimed at removing particular individuals and sending wider signals about power relations to promote a variety of political, economic or crimi…
Please GO Home and Build Africa: Criminalising Immigrants in South Africa
In April 2015, a Whatsapp text message instructed millions of African immigrants in South Africa to go home. The message drew on xenophobia and afrophobia to criminalise African immigrants in South Africa. Broadly, immigrants are seen as breaking the law by illegally crossing a sovereign border and becoming illegal foreigners. Having entered the country without authorisation ('papers'), these foreigners become perceived as drug dealers, trafficke…
Organised Crime in Late Apartheid and the Transition to a New Criminal Order: The Rise and Fall of the Johannesburg 'Bouncer Mafia
The Johannesburg bouncer mafia, a series of violent and competing groups, dominated the city’s underworld from the late 1980s until the early 2000s. While the bouncer mafia was one of several emerging criminal networks at the time, although the most prominent in respect of Johannesburg’s changing illicit drug economy, they provide a useful example of how organised crime originated during South Africa’s transition: a fact often commented on, but l…
Does organized crime exist in Africa: Figure 1
There is increasing international concern about the growth of organized crime in Africa. Important criminal organizations and professional criminals are present in Africa, but we argue that the term “organized crime” is not a very useful description of their activity, since what we are actually witnessing is a reformulation of politics and crime into networks that transcend the state/non-state boundary in ways that are hardly subsumed in standard…
Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau, 1998-2014: The Evolution of an Elite Protection Network
Guinea-Bissau has been regularly described as a 'narco-state'. Yet, few studies analyse how drug trafficking has evolved here. Based on extensive interviews in Guinea-Bissau over several years, this paper documents the process. It concludes that using the term 'narco-state', where much of the state has little or no capacity, is inappropriate. A better approach is to analyse the actions of key players as an elite protection network. In Guinea-Biss…
Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire
Mark Shaw, Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: transforming under fire. LondonHurst & Company, 2002, 169 pp., £40.00, ISBN 1 85065 399 2 (hard covers), £14.95, 1 85065 418 2 (paperback). - Volume 73 Issue 4
West African Criminal Networks in South and Southern Africa
Southern Africa, and South Africa in particular, has become an important home base for criminal networks made up of individuals from West Africa. Drawing on interviews with those involved, this article considers the nature, extent and development of this phenomenon. The evidence gathered suggests that standard conceptions of organized crime as structured and hierarchical entities do not take account of the specific networked nature of West Africa…
Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire
Regional Traffick: Towards an understanding of West African criminal networks in Southern Africa
That West African criminal networks have contributed to the growth of organised crime in Southern Africa is clear. Though often remarked upon, these networks are seldom understood. This essay assesses the information available on how these groups, mainly Nigerian, have penetrated and operated in the region. Technology, mobile phone and the internet, for instance, as well as a reliance on close-knit ethnic groups enable networks to expand their il…
The political economy of crime and conflict in sub Saharan Africa
(2001). The political economy of crime and conflict in sub Saharan Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 57-69
Reshaping Security: An Examination of the Governance of Security in South Africa
This article seeks to trace the way in which the reform of policing has developed in South Africa and to identify some of the lessons that can be learned from the problems that have arisen. In developing the argument, the article will:- explore the situation that the new government found themselves in;- identify the policy framework developed to respond to this situation;- trace the trajectory of reform and the reasons for the departure from what…
Organised and cross-border crime inpost-apartheidSouth Africa
(1998). Organised and cross‐border crime in post‐apartheid South Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 111-117
The Kingdom of God in Africa: A Short History of African Christianity
This survey of Christianity in Africa looks at the church prior to the emergence of Islam, the medieval centuries of Islamic domination, the missions and colonial eras, and the remarkable story of 20th century Africa
Public Attitudes Regarding Undocumented Migration and Policing/Crime
South Africa: Crime in transition
Ending crime has become the leading challenge of South Africa's democratic government. While the growth of criminality in the society began in the early 1980s it peaked – in common with other societies attempting to move from authoritarian rule to democratic governance – during the years of political transition. But, South Africa's system of criminal justice is ill‐prepared to face the challenges of growing crime. Policing remains centralized, un…
Towards a South African Policy on Preventive Diplomacy and Peace Support Operations
The first tangible result of this project was a round table seminar on South African Policy on Global Peace Support Efforts hosted by IDP in Cape Town on 17 and 18 May 1995. The purpose of the seminar was to engage key South Africans in a debate on preventive diplomacy, and more specifically, the role of the country in peace support operations. In particular, the criteria for, modus operandi of and restraints on South African participation in pea…
South Africa and Peacekeeping in Africa—volume 1
Towards Safer Cities: Crime, Political Transition and Chancing Forms of Policing Control in South Africa
Richard Hooker and the Politics of Christian England
Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire
Mark Shaw, Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: transforming under fire. LondonHurst & Company, 2002, 169 pp., £40.00, ISBN 1 85065 399 2 (hard covers), £14.95, 1 85065 418 2 (paperback). - Volume 73 Issue 4
Please GO Home and Build Africa: Criminalising Immigrants in South Africa
In April 2015, a Whatsapp text message instructed millions of African immigrants in South Africa to go home. The message drew on xenophobia and afrophobia to criminalise African immigrants in South Africa. Broadly, immigrants are seen as breaking the law by illegally crossing a sovereign border and becoming illegal foreigners. Having entered the country without authorisation ('papers'), these foreigners become perceived as drug dealers, trafficke…
The Ecology of Social Change: Wolverhampton 1851-71
The hypothesis that the process of industrialization/modernization involved an evolution of the dimensions of residential differentiation is examined using Census Returns for nineteenth-century Wolverhampton. Comparison of fac- torial ecologies for I851, I86I and I87I provides strong evidence for this type of temporal change. WHILE in I831 only a quarter of the population of England and Wales lived in towns of over 20 000, by 1881 70 per cent did…
A Flawed War: Rethinking ‘Green Militarisation’ in the Kruger National Park
Drawing on both a historical analysis of wildlife conservation in South Africa and the experience of other countries in Africa in countering wildlife poaching, some scholars have labelled the process of responding to rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park as 'green militarisation'. The term is broadly employed to denote the use of military-style techniques and approaches, as well as the military itself, in countering poaching. Several propone…
Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau, 1998-2014: The Evolution of an Elite Protection Network
Guinea-Bissau has been regularly described as a 'narco-state'. Yet, few studies analyse how drug trafficking has evolved here. Based on extensive interviews in Guinea-Bissau over several years, this paper documents the process. It concludes that using the term 'narco-state', where much of the state has little or no capacity, is inappropriate. A better approach is to analyse the actions of key players as an elite protection network. In Guinea-Biss…
Does organized crime exist in Africa: Figure 1
There is increasing international concern about the growth of organized crime in Africa. Important criminal organizations and professional criminals are present in Africa, but we argue that the term “organized crime” is not a very useful description of their activity, since what we are actually witnessing is a reformulation of politics and crime into networks that transcend the state/non-state boundary in ways that are hardly subsumed in standard…
West African Criminal Networks in South and Southern Africa
Southern Africa, and South Africa in particular, has become an important home base for criminal networks made up of individuals from West Africa. Drawing on interviews with those involved, this article considers the nature, extent and development of this phenomenon. The evidence gathered suggests that standard conceptions of organized crime as structured and hierarchical entities do not take account of the specific networked nature of West Africa…
What Could an Asymmetrical Strategy Against Organised Crime Look Like? A Lesson from the Drug Policy Debate
The debate regarding the ideal response to organised crime is quickly evolving, although it remains often remarkably disconnected from the even more rapidly moving discussion on drugs. One important connection between these two debates is the application of a similar set of terminology – namely that of harm reduction. Harm reduction focuses on examining policy responses in ways which both highlight prevention and individual and community impacts,…
South Africa: Crime in transition
Ending crime has become the leading challenge of South Africa's democratic government. While the growth of criminality in the society began in the early 1980s it peaked – in common with other societies attempting to move from authoritarian rule to democratic governance – during the years of political transition. But, South Africa's system of criminal justice is ill‐prepared to face the challenges of growing crime. Policing remains centralized, un…
Getting angry with honest people’: The illicit market for immigrant ‘papers’ in Cape Town, South Africa
South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials ‘seem to get angry with honest people’, shared a Congolese immigrant from the Kivu region who now resides in Cape Town. Some DHA officials get money through illicit transactions for ‘papers’ and they become visibly frustrated with immigrants who try to obtain documents by lawful means. While there has been much focus on xenophobia associated with immigration in South Africa, there has been …
Organised Crime in Late Apartheid and the Transition to a New Criminal Order: The Rise and Fall of the Johannesburg 'Bouncer Mafia
The Johannesburg bouncer mafia, a series of violent and competing groups, dominated the city’s underworld from the late 1980s until the early 2000s. While the bouncer mafia was one of several emerging criminal networks at the time, although the most prominent in respect of Johannesburg’s changing illicit drug economy, they provide a useful example of how organised crime originated during South Africa’s transition: a fact often commented on, but l…
Regional Traffick: Towards an understanding of West African criminal networks in Southern Africa
That West African criminal networks have contributed to the growth of organised crime in Southern Africa is clear. Though often remarked upon, these networks are seldom understood. This essay assesses the information available on how these groups, mainly Nigerian, have penetrated and operated in the region. Technology, mobile phone and the internet, for instance, as well as a reliance on close-knit ethnic groups enable networks to expand their il…
Reshaping Security: An Examination of the Governance of Security in South Africa
This article seeks to trace the way in which the reform of policing has developed in South Africa and to identify some of the lessons that can be learned from the problems that have arisen. In developing the argument, the article will:- explore the situation that the new government found themselves in;- identify the policy framework developed to respond to this situation;- trace the trajectory of reform and the reasons for the departure from what…
Public Attitudes Regarding Undocumented Migration and Policing/Crime
Towards a South African Policy on Preventive Diplomacy and Peace Support Operations
The first tangible result of this project was a round table seminar on South African Policy on Global Peace Support Efforts hosted by IDP in Cape Town on 17 and 18 May 1995. The purpose of the seminar was to engage key South Africans in a debate on preventive diplomacy, and more specifically, the role of the country in peace support operations. In particular, the criteria for, modus operandi of and restraints on South African participation in pea…
Towards Safer Cities: Crime, Political Transition and Chancing Forms of Policing Control in South Africa
The Ecology of Social Change: Wolverhampton 1851-71
The hypothesis that the process of industrialization/modernization involved an evolution of the dimensions of residential differentiation is examined using Census Returns for nineteenth-century Wolverhampton. Comparison of fac- torial ecologies for I851, I86I and I87I provides strong evidence for this type of temporal change. WHILE in I831 only a quarter of the population of England and Wales lived in towns of over 20 000, by 1881 70 per cent did…
Reconciling Social and Physical Space: Wolverhampton 1871
In studying residential patterns, factorial ecologists have tended to concentrate upon social differentiation. Similarly, urban historians have focused upon the differentiation of the residential environment and, in particular, the differentiation of the physical fabric of the city. It is argued here that a full appreciation of urban residential patterns must integrate both of these aspects. To illustrate this, the paper attempts to characterize …
Richard Hooker and the Politics of Christian England
Towards a South African Policy on Preventive Diplomacy and Peace Support Operations
The first tangible result of this project was a round table seminar on South African Policy on Global Peace Support Efforts hosted by IDP in Cape Town on 17 and 18 May 1995. The purpose of the seminar was to engage key South Africans in a debate on preventive diplomacy, and more specifically, the role of the country in peace support operations. In particular, the criteria for, modus operandi of and restraints on South African participation in pea…
South Africa and Peacekeeping in Africa—volume 1
Towards Safer Cities: Crime, Political Transition and Chancing Forms of Policing Control in South Africa
South Africa: Crime in transition
Ending crime has become the leading challenge of South Africa's democratic government. While the growth of criminality in the society began in the early 1980s it peaked – in common with other societies attempting to move from authoritarian rule to democratic governance – during the years of political transition. But, South Africa's system of criminal justice is ill‐prepared to face the challenges of growing crime. Policing remains centralized, un…
Public Attitudes Regarding Undocumented Migration and Policing/Crime
Reshaping Security: An Examination of the Governance of Security in South Africa
This article seeks to trace the way in which the reform of policing has developed in South Africa and to identify some of the lessons that can be learned from the problems that have arisen. In developing the argument, the article will:- explore the situation that the new government found themselves in;- identify the policy framework developed to respond to this situation;- trace the trajectory of reform and the reasons for the departure from what…
Organised and cross-border crime inpost-apartheidSouth Africa
(1998). Organised and cross‐border crime in post‐apartheid South Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 111-117
The Kingdom of God in Africa: A Short History of African Christianity
This survey of Christianity in Africa looks at the church prior to the emergence of Islam, the medieval centuries of Islamic domination, the missions and colonial eras, and the remarkable story of 20th century Africa
Regional Traffick: Towards an understanding of West African criminal networks in Southern Africa
That West African criminal networks have contributed to the growth of organised crime in Southern Africa is clear. Though often remarked upon, these networks are seldom understood. This essay assesses the information available on how these groups, mainly Nigerian, have penetrated and operated in the region. Technology, mobile phone and the internet, for instance, as well as a reliance on close-knit ethnic groups enable networks to expand their il…
The political economy of crime and conflict in sub Saharan Africa
(2001). The political economy of crime and conflict in sub Saharan Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 57-69
West African Criminal Networks in South and Southern Africa
Southern Africa, and South Africa in particular, has become an important home base for criminal networks made up of individuals from West Africa. Drawing on interviews with those involved, this article considers the nature, extent and development of this phenomenon. The evidence gathered suggests that standard conceptions of organized crime as structured and hierarchical entities do not take account of the specific networked nature of West Africa…
Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire
Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire
Mark Shaw, Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: transforming under fire. LondonHurst & Company, 2002, 169 pp., £40.00, ISBN 1 85065 399 2 (hard covers), £14.95, 1 85065 418 2 (paperback). - Volume 73 Issue 4
Does organized crime exist in Africa: Figure 1
There is increasing international concern about the growth of organized crime in Africa. Important criminal organizations and professional criminals are present in Africa, but we argue that the term “organized crime” is not a very useful description of their activity, since what we are actually witnessing is a reformulation of politics and crime into networks that transcend the state/non-state boundary in ways that are hardly subsumed in standard…
Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau, 1998-2014: The Evolution of an Elite Protection Network
Guinea-Bissau has been regularly described as a 'narco-state'. Yet, few studies analyse how drug trafficking has evolved here. Based on extensive interviews in Guinea-Bissau over several years, this paper documents the process. It concludes that using the term 'narco-state', where much of the state has little or no capacity, is inappropriate. A better approach is to analyse the actions of key players as an elite protection network. In Guinea-Biss…
A tale of two cities: Mafia control, the night time entertainment economy and drug retail markets in Johannesburg and Cape Town, 1985–2015
Extortion and violence associated with drug markets in the night time club industry in Johannesburg and Cape Town provide contrasting cases of how mafia groups begin to form and then evolve. In Johannesburg a protection economy, run by a white ‘bouncer mafia’ developed around the distribution of drugs in nightclubs. After significant conflict between these groups, one achieved dominance before being displaced non-violently by emergent Nigerian cr…
A Flawed War: Rethinking ‘Green Militarisation’ in the Kruger National Park
Drawing on both a historical analysis of wildlife conservation in South Africa and the experience of other countries in Africa in countering wildlife poaching, some scholars have labelled the process of responding to rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park as 'green militarisation'. The term is broadly employed to denote the use of military-style techniques and approaches, as well as the military itself, in countering poaching. Several propone…
The Commercialization of Assassination: Hits’ and Contract Killing in South Africa, 2000–2015
Targeted killings or ‘hits’ have become a feature of South Africa's political economy, both licit and illicit. Given their current and potential impact they are understudied. In this article, we present data for hits for a 16-year period from 2000 to 2015. Hits represent the application of targeted violence aimed at removing particular individuals and sending wider signals about power relations to promote a variety of political, economic or crimi…
Please GO Home and Build Africa: Criminalising Immigrants in South Africa
In April 2015, a Whatsapp text message instructed millions of African immigrants in South Africa to go home. The message drew on xenophobia and afrophobia to criminalise African immigrants in South Africa. Broadly, immigrants are seen as breaking the law by illegally crossing a sovereign border and becoming illegal foreigners. Having entered the country without authorisation ('papers'), these foreigners become perceived as drug dealers, trafficke…
Organised Crime in Late Apartheid and the Transition to a New Criminal Order: The Rise and Fall of the Johannesburg 'Bouncer Mafia
The Johannesburg bouncer mafia, a series of violent and competing groups, dominated the city’s underworld from the late 1980s until the early 2000s. While the bouncer mafia was one of several emerging criminal networks at the time, although the most prominent in respect of Johannesburg’s changing illicit drug economy, they provide a useful example of how organised crime originated during South Africa’s transition: a fact often commented on, but l…
Getting angry with honest people’: The illicit market for immigrant ‘papers’ in Cape Town, South Africa
South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials ‘seem to get angry with honest people’, shared a Congolese immigrant from the Kivu region who now resides in Cape Town. Some DHA officials get money through illicit transactions for ‘papers’ and they become visibly frustrated with immigrants who try to obtain documents by lawful means. While there has been much focus on xenophobia associated with immigration in South Africa, there has been …
What Could an Asymmetrical Strategy Against Organised Crime Look Like? A Lesson from the Drug Policy Debate
The debate regarding the ideal response to organised crime is quickly evolving, although it remains often remarkably disconnected from the even more rapidly moving discussion on drugs. One important connection between these two debates is the application of a similar set of terminology – namely that of harm reduction. Harm reduction focuses on examining policy responses in ways which both highlight prevention and individual and community impacts,…
Political science (24 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Criminology (14 works) · Politics (12 works) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Organised crime (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Business (7 works)