convergence

Williams
The corollary is that although some strong legitimate states will endure, even those will
face a complex and potentially overwhelming set of challenges, while the number of what
might be termed qualified, restricted, notional, or hollow and collapsed states will only increase.
Moreover, many of the weaker states will be neutralized, penetrated, or in some cases even
captured by organized crime or other violent armed groups. In effect, we will continue to see
a world of formal state structures but at least some of these will be little more than fronts for
criminal structures. The emphasis on state sovereignty will do little to obscure the dispersal
of real authority and power among what Rapley described as “autonomous political agents,
equipped with their own resource bases, which make them resistant to a reimposition of centralized
control.” 79 One of the corollaries of this is the increasing spread of disorder from the
zone of weak states and feral cities in the developing world to the countries of the developed
world. In effect, “the revenge of the periphery” will become even more pronounced.
The third and closely related development is that good governance and the rule of law will
become even more infrequent and restricted than they are at present. Most modern societies
are at least nominally based on the rule of law and on the notion of the state providing security
for its citizens not only against external military threats but also against internal criminal
threats. Yet in more and more instances, not only is the state unable to provide for the security
of its citizens at the domestic levels, but increasing portions of the population are seemingly
becoming unwilling to obey laws or accept certain norms of behavior. This is a form of anomie,
which is generally understood as a kind of behavioral sink, a degeneration of rules and norms
and the emergence of forms of behavior unconstrained by standard notions of what is or is not
acceptable. In some instances this collapse of social norms—which typically reinforce the rule
of law—results from external shocks. In such cases, not only are the restraints removed but
norms and inhibitions that were once in place no longer apply or guide behavior. This is partly
because the penalties for noncompliance with the norms have suddenly been removed. Yet it
also represents something much more fundamental: a willingness to put morality and decency
to one side, a marked absence of respect for fellow citizens who become simply targets to be
exploited for financial gain, and a readiness to engage in forms of behavior that are normally
regarded as reprehensible. As defined by Passas, anomie is a withdrawal of allegiance from
conventional norms and a weakening of these norms’ guiding power on behavior. 80 In some
cases, the descent into anomie is rapid; in others it is a long-term trend. Passas, for example,
has argued that not all anomie should be linked to strain theory or seen as in terms of sudden
collapse. Rather, he argues, it is often a result of structural contradictions in society, which
create a gap between expectations and the opportunity to fulfill them—a gap that typically
results in social deviance or criminality. 81 The result, however, is the same: a decline of behavioral
norms and standards, the spread of both organized and disorganized crime, and the
growing pervasiveness of violence in society. An anomic world is one in which social capital is
replaced by criminal capital, violence is no longer under the monopoly control of the state, and
inhibitions on barbaric behavior (such as decapitations, mutilation of bodies, etc.) have largely
disappeared. Some of the drug violence in northern Mexico has this quality.
In many ways, Malcolm Gladwell’s notion of contagion accords fully with the notion of
anomie and spreading criminality. Gladwell spends much time discussing the “stickiness” or
attraction of certain ideas and forms of behavior. 82 From this perspective, criminal careers as
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