Crime, Conflict, and the Legitimacy Trade-Off
Explaining Variation in Insurgents’ Participation in Crime
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8032255 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Victor Asal (0000-0001-7614-4869, Albany State University), Victor H Asal, R Karl Rethemeyer (0000-0002-5673-8026, Albany State University), Eric W Schoon (0000-0002-0262-9959, The Ohio State University) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 81 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 399-410 |
| Publication date | 2019-02-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3816 • E-ISSN: 1468-2508 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/701492 |
| OpenAlex | W2913590924 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 30 |
| References cited | 43 |
Insurgent organizations have become major players in criminal enterprises around the world. However, research examining why some participate in crime while others do not remains underdeveloped. Analyzing newly collected annual data on 140 insurgent groups from 1998 to 2012, we examine the conditions driving insurgents' participation in drug crimes, extortion, smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, and robbery. We find that control of territory positively affects involvement in all types of crime. However, we also find notable differences in the conditions driving participation in episodic crimes versus crimes that require institutional investments. Institutional crimes are, with the exception of smuggling, more likely to occur as insurgent groups age, whereas efforts to cultivate legitimacy—as indicated by the ongoing provision of social services—substantially reduces the probability of involvement in episodic crimes. We discuss how this latter effect is reflective of a legitimacy trade-off that emerges for groups pursuing both social support and material resources
Criminology · Embeddedness · Extortion · Legitimacy · Organised crime · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Ransom · Social control · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Dogs and Cats Living Together? Explaining the Crime-Terror Nexus
Contested Legitimacy in Ferguson
Al-Shabaab’s Financial Fortitude
Taking to Kill
Law and Order in Counterinsurgency
When women fight
Predictors of terrorist use of suicide attacks
Political Entrepreneurs or Bandits? The “Criminal” Origins of Peripheral Rebellions
Rethinking Intersections of Crime and Terrorism
Tipping Points
Lethal effects
Depoliticizing rebels
Assessing border walls’ varied impacts on terrorist group diffusion
Ideological motives and taxation by armed groups
Ripe moments for terror attacks
Breaking taboos
Friends or foes? The insurgent’s dilemma of seeking legitimacy while keeping secrets
Beyond Ransom and Political Concessions? Explaining Changes in Insurgents’ Kidnapping Involvement Versus Event-frequency
Human Trafficking-Terrorism Nexus
The Determinants of Terrorist Listing
Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together? Rebel Constituencies and Civil War Alliances
Taking Civilians
From Drug Lords to Police State
Partners in Crime
The Fortification Dilemma
Repertoires of Terror
Why insurgents engage in kidnappings
Introducing a new dataset on Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO)
Revolutionary days
The Logic of Kidnapping in Civil War
Religion, terrorism and public goods
Kleptocracy and revolutions
On economic causes of civil war
Social science history
Dirty Entanglements
Compassionate Communalism
Conflict, Crime, and the State in Postcommunist Eurasia
Comparative configurational analysis as a two-mode network problem
Blood cigarettes
The Crime-Terror Continuum
State Power and Its Implications for Civil War Colombia
Welfare as Warfare
Nonprofit Service Provision by Insurgent Organizations
The Leaderless Nexus
A preliminary theory of dark network resilience
Organizing Insurgency
Taking Time Seriously
Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan
The Nature of the Beast
A Diamond Curse
When Terrorists Go Bad
External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse
Development and political legitimacy
The Architecture of Drug Trafficking
Understanding the Legitimacy of Armed Groups
Building Legitimacy
Terrorists Next Door? A Comparison of Mexican Drug Cartels and Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations
Fluctuations Between Crime and Terror
Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict
When Politicians Sell Drugs
Surreptitious Lifelines
The Interaction of Narcotics and Conflict
Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others
Guerrilla Insurgency as Organized Crime
The Paradox of Legitimacy
Irregular armed forces, shifting patterns of commitment, and fragmented sovereignty in the developing world
| Unique citing works | 30 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 29 |