convergence

Gilman, Goldhammer, and Weber
amount of time, energy, and attention trying to control what comes in and out of their borders.
Although deviant globalization may initially have flowered as a result of state hollowing, as
it develops, it becomes a positive feedback loop in much the same way that many successful
animal and plant species, as they invade a natural ecosystem, reshape their ecosystem in ways
that improve their ability to exclude competitors. 12
What is distinctive in this dynamic is that very few of these political actors have any interest
in actually taking control of the formal institutions of the state. Deviant entrepreneurs
have developed market niches in which extractable returns are more profitable, and frankly
easier, than anything they could get by “owning” enough of the state functions to extract rents
from those instead. Organizations such as the First Command of the Capital in Brazil, the
‘Ndrangheta in Italy, or the drug cartels in Mexico have no interest in taking over the states
in which they operate. Why would they want that? This would only mean that they would be
expected to provide a much broader and less selective menu of services to everyone, including
ungrateful and low-profit clients, those so-called citizens. None of these organizations plan to
declare sovereign independence and file for membership in the United Nations. Corrupt the
state? Of course. Own the state? No, thanks. What they want, simply, is to carve out autonomous
spaces where they can do their business without state intervention.
This underscores a crucial point about deviant globalization: it does not thrive in truly
“failed” states—that is, in places where the state has completely disappeared—but rather in
weak but well-connected states, in which the deviant entrepreneur can establish a zone of
autonomy while continuing to rely on the state for some of the vestigial services it continues to
furnish. 13 Alas, states and deviant entrepreneurs are unlikely to find a sustainable equilibrium.
On the one hand, the more deviant industries grow, the more damage they do to the political
legitimacy of the states within which the deviant entrepreneurs operate, thus undermining the
capacity of the state to provide the infrastructure and services that the deviant entrepreneurs
want to catch a free ride on. On the other hand, the people living in the semi-autonomous
zones controlled by deviant entrepreneurs increasingly recognize those entrepreneurs rather
than the hollowed out state as the real source of local power and authority—if for no other
reason than the recognition that if you cannot beat them, you should join them. Of course, just
because these deviant providers of alternative governance functions end up seeming “legitimate”
in the eyes of local stakeholders (if only because of the economic “development” benefits they
provide), this type of governance is usually poorly institutionalized and nontransparent about
both ends and means. Nonetheless, as these groups take over functions that would have been
expected of the state, their stakeholders increasingly lose interest in the hollowed-out formal
state institutions. 14 Thus, even though deviant entrepreneurs have no desire to kill their host
state, they may end up precipitating a process whereby the state implodes catastrophically.
Something like this took place in Colombia in the 1980s, in Zaire/Congo since the 1990s,
and may be taking place in Mexico today.
10