Global Crime Governance – Towards a Normative Order to Combat Transnational Non-state Violence and Organized Crime

Since the end of the Cold War, the rise of non-state violence has become a new challenge for governance in the international arena. Transnational organized crime – as in form of trafficking drugs, arms or humans – and politically motivated rebel groups are, at the same time, endangering the state’s monopoly over the use of force.

Ways of international cooperation for combating crimes

This study, carried out from 2010 to 2012, focused on the various forms of global crime governance that emerge in response to these phenomena. It investigated the forms, causes and effectiveness of international cooperation in combating crime and dealing with political forms of non-state violence by rebels or terrorist groups. The project was particularly interested in the changing role of non-state economic and civil society actors in the context of global crime governance.
A comparative study of different regulatory approaches investigated the extent to which and under which conditions the inclusion of non-state actors increases the effectiveness of global crime governance.

Survey, causal mechanisms, analysis and recommendations

Assuming that conflicts over recognition and procedural or distributive justice could be the causes of transnational crime and non-state violence, strategies based on securitization and criminalization alone will not prove to be effective responses. Rather, global crime governance is in need of a normative reconfiguration in regard to the substance of regulations as well as the status ascribed to non-state criminal or violent actors – these may range from criminal organizations to “co-producers” of peace-promoting governance.

The study proceeds in four steps: first, it maps the existing international approaches to combating crime and non-state violence in various areas (piracy, human smuggling and trafficking, money laundering and corruption, illegal arms trade, and terrorism). Second, it identifies the causal mechanisms that explain why certain institutional designs prevail over other possibilities. Third, an impact analysis assesses and explains the effectiveness of global crime governance by evaluating both their immediate effects for problem resolution and their impacts on cross-sectoral peace and justice. Based on these findings, the project generates policy recommendations that enable for the development of appropriate measures to deal with transnational non-state violence and organized crime. These also provide answers to questions such as: How many and what kind of police and military measures are necessary? To what degree and under which conditions are inclusion and recognition necessary and feasible?