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Article Excerpt
DEBATES ON TRANSNATIONAL CRIME (TNC) HAVE TAKEN A DICHOTOMOUS ROUTE. First, transnational "crimes" have been regarded as an unstoppable global phenomenon, disconnected from specific people or locations (el-Ojeili and Hayden, 2006). Yet, conversely, TNC has been viewed as the result of the activities of particularly "dangerous" identities or places (Pickering, 2007). In the last decade, for instance, the identification of "failed states," "weak states," "fragile states," or even "Low Income Countries Under Stress" has centered on the idea that such areas are "breeding grounds" for TNC and will become enclaves for "dissidence" (Abraham and Van Schendel, 2005). These states are presented by the United Nations (U.N.), international financial institutions (IFIs), and powerful states as overt or latent threats that require monitoring and intervention, particularly in the areas of security, policing, and border control.
Some authors (such as Greener-Barcham and Barcham, 2006) argue that such interventions are ultimately detrimental, for even if TNC may be identified as having a "local," it is rarely connected to a history, to structural realities, or lived experiences. That is, conditions that give rise to TNC, as well as those created by official responses to TNC, are made invisible. In reality, in countries deemed to be "weak" or "under stress," principal social problems do not revolve around TNC, but around concerns such as employment, education, health, and housing--what the people need. At best, these latter injustices can be overlooked in transnational initiatives that focus on security and control while, at worst, the responsive remit to TNC may lead more powerful states to entrench their own strategies, policies, and worldviews into less powerful states, and to treat those "at risk" as "the risk" (Ibid.; McCulloch, 2006).
This article argues that TNC cannot be analyzed without some understanding of the activities of states and transnational institutions. Specifically, it details how international interventions in Timor-Leste (East Timor)--which resolved to deal with previous, extreme TNC--have resulted in numerous negative outcomes for Timorese people. The state-building project in Timor-Leste has been cloaked in the languages of human rights and development, but priority has been given to the technical, political, economic, and strategic interests of the United Nations, IFIs, and powerful regional actors. Consequently, state-building in Timor-Leste has failed to adequately respond to previous state-led TNC; neglected to ensure local participation in emerging, sustainable state structures; and, promoted the interests of international actors over those of the local population. Overall, international state-building has contributed to an insecure Timor-Leste. It has intensified divisions and conflict, deepened poverty, and encouraged a culture of dependency on external actors. These realities have shaped conditions under which further harms and crimes, including TNCs, have occurred and will occur.
Globalization and State-Building
Globalization--the "social and political implications" of a "growing world interconnectedness" (Hayden and el-Ojeili, 2005: 2)--has brought many shifts, not least in terms of economic change. The dominance of the advanced global capitalist system has ensured a growing interdependency between states with regard to production, as well as to access to material goods and services (Smart, 2005). The patterns of inequality that have intensified under this global economic order are well versed. Although a select few enjoy the spoils of the system, billions of people suffer abject poverty, illness, and early death. Further, globalization has facilitated consumerist societies in which most people are marginalized and, as a consequence of their economic failings, are subject to social exclusion and criminalization.
At the same time, the activities of multinational corporations and IFIs such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have each been connected to TNC activity. Multinational companies (MNCs), which have dramatically reconfigured labor relations in an attempt to develop new markets and increase profits, have consistently been associated with violations of human rights and health and safety laws (ei-Ojeili and Hayden, 2006). Similarly, IFIs have been recognized as "intrinsically criminogenic" (Friedrichs, 2004:151) in their operational failure to alleviate poverty-related harm and death. Thus, IFI policy decisions and operations that facilitate negative "financial and human consequences for large numbers of especially vulnerable people" are deemed to be "crimes of globalization" (Ibid.: 147), and their failure to "provide poor countries with fair access to determining the rules of international trade" are cast as criminally negligent (Mackenzie, 2006: 175).
Arguably, the global systems that have concentrated economic and political power have weakened states. The role of states appears to be reduced to being "a mere facilitator" of global political, legal, and economic systems (McCulloch, 2006: 5). Consequently, though the G8 states may be able to shape the agendas of IFIs or MNCs, less powerful countries have limited ability to resist their neoliberal economic and social policies. These processes of globalization are unevenly applied, but the shifting contexts in which states operate have not necessarily meant that states have crumbled (despite a few exceptions such as in West Africa). Instead, state institutions have been transformed with the changing landscapes of power (Held et al., 1999). States are, therefore, in a continual process of realignment in which power arrangements are collaboratively built (Stanley, 2007).
Increasingly, these processes of realignment have developed dramatically and are led by international actors. This is particularly so in the emergence of state-building processes. Over the past decade, those ranked as "failing states," such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste, have been subject to significant international attention and intervention. International state-building measures--peacekeeping operations, humanitarian assistance, and the formation and governance of state institutions--are deemed necessary to protect populations from gross human rights abuses, but also to prevent the emergence of...
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