Criminality, Political Power and Conflict: Critical Perspectives

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In the aftermath of the greed vs. grievance debate and the new wars paradigm, the focus of conflict studies shifted decisively to understanding "predatory" behaviours as the raison d'etre of contemporary conflict. Conflict was viewed as a continuum in which the more you engage in criminal behaviour, the less political you are.This approach has been robustly criticised over the past 15 years; however, in the process, we have been left with unsuitable concepts to handle the complex interactions between civil war, political power and criminality. The departure point here is the understanding of politics and criminality as two historically differentiated domains of human activity. Different, but interrelated, often co-constitutive and overlapping. Here, we empirically and theoretically explore their interactions, connections, and convergences, not focusing solely on irregular actors, thus bringing back the State and elites into this debate.

Author Bio

Jose A. Gutierrez is lecturer at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) at the University of York.

Francisco Gutierrez-Sann is lecturer at the Institute for Political Sudies and International Relations (IEPRI) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogot.