Covert Netherworld
An Invisible Interstice in the Modern World System
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7730646 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alfred W Mccoy (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 847-879 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0010417516000451 |
| OpenAlex | W2525039066 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 27 |
This essay explores a domain of geopolitical conflict called “covert netherworld” that has been a seminal in world politics for the past half century and likely to become more central in the century to come. During the Cold War and its aftermath, covert netherworlds formed worldwide through confluence of four essential elements: reliance of modern states on covert methods for power projection at home and abroad; the consequent emergence of a clandestine social milieu populated by secret services and criminal syndicates; a complementary illicit economic nexus that sustains non-state actors and sometimes state security; and finally, spatial dimensions that range from a narrow criminal or covert milieu to entire countries or continents. When these elements align, this netherworld can attain the sheer geopolitical power to shape the course of national and international events. To lend substance to these generic elements, the essay explores three arenas of widening geographical scope. At the local level in the southern Philippines, a regional netherworld fostered Islamic insurgency and state counterinsurgency, while national elections were sustained by an illegal lottery, shaping the character of an emerging polity. At the transnational level, France's postcolonial hold on the West African region dubbed Françafrique constrained corruption within state-mediated circuits and entrenched elites at both ends of this bilateral exchange. By contrast, U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan and Central America had divergent outcomes influenced by their degree of congruence with the narcotics traffic, demonstrating that the covert netherworld can exercise sufficient autonomy to be treated as a significant factor in world politics
Autonomy · Covert · Geopolitics · Organised crime · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Polity · Power (physics) · Sociology · State (computer science) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Cuban History and Society · Law · Philippine History and Culture
Global Outlaws
Warlord Politics and African States
The decline of constitutional democracy in Indonesia
From Max Weber
The Criminalization of the State in Africa
Politics in Francophone Africa
Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937
Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam
The French Secret Services
Human Impact on Mountains
US aid policy in Africa
The Sulu Arms Market
Gabon
Policing Shanghai 1927-1937
The politics of heroin
U. S. Drug Policy
Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century
Sentry Box in the Backyard
European Drug Traffic and Traffickers Between the Wars
The Arroyo Imbroglio in the Philippines
Global prohibition regimes
Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |