convergence

Chapter 9
The Criminal State
Michael Miklaucic and Moisés Naím
C orruption in public administration dates from time immemorial. And though agencies
such as Transparency International rate some states as more or less corrupt than others,
no state is above, beyond, or immune to public corruption. One need only review the serial
revelations of corruption within the governments of the District of Columbia, Spain, or
Hong Kong in recent years to see that it can and does happen everywhere. However, as this
book argues throughout, the recent proliferating interaction among criminal, terrorist, and
insurgent networks and the exponentially greater magnitude of their commerce made possible
by the processes of globalization have moved the overall threat posed by state collusion with
transnational illicit networks from the status of international nuisance to a substantial threat
to the contemporary international order.
While corruption and criminalization are outcomes of human agency and choice, the
most threatening aspect of the current situation is not the morally fallen individual. The
corruption and criminality we describe in this book is, rather, the presence of intensively
networked international organizations engaged in a full range of illicit activities including
trafficking in all manner of contraband and counterfeit. This book describes the emergence
of such networks from the shadows of the criminal world into the world of national and
international security.
This chapter examines a frequently mentioned but infrequently elaborated new and
disturbing development: the emergence of the criminal state. We begin with a prefatory discussion
of some of the impediments to clear analysis and understanding of converging criminal
networks, as well as the unique obstacles to full comprehension that criminal states pose. These
have been iterated in previous works of one of the authors, 1 but they bear reiteration to serve
as the backdrop for the further discussion. We argue that state criminalization exists along a
spectrum characterized by varying degrees of corruption and various functions of corruption
within the state. At one end of the spectrum is “criminal penetration,” which occurs when an
illicit network, be it criminal, terrorist, or insurgent, is able to place “one of its own” into the
state structure. That agent may carry out formal functions on behalf of the state but also carries
out actions in support of an illicit network or criminal enterprise. “Criminal infiltration” occurs
when the infection has spread throughout the state apparatus within the given country, and the
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