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these challenges within government or limited voices
and limited leverage among external actors to increase
political pressure to advance reform efforts.
2. Typology analysis 58
Based on our own research and the core areas we have
identified for targeted programming, we have also
developed the option of a typology analysis framework,
grouping forms of organized crime/politics relations into
two broad typologies: enclave or mafia. The framework
is sharply underpinned by the ‘do no harm’ principle and
could, with more research and field testing, be coupled
with a political economy assessment such as the one
suggested above, to set the broad outlines for an organized
crime-sensitive development strategy. For now, we do not
argue that any of our cases studies fit neatly or entirely
within either one of these ‘ideal types’. Different aspects
may be present in one country at the same time, or the
dynamics of a country may force a shift from one ideal
type to the other. The ideal types should be seen merely as
analytical lenses, whose use in examining specific country
cases may help draw out certain aspects of the impact of
organized crime on governance, t<strong>here</strong>by improving the
prospects of effective, do no harm-based development
interventions. The typology analysis could also serve as a
useful framework for determining priority actions within
the five areas outlined above. Through further research,
conceptual development and testing, similar frameworks
may provide a basis for more sophisticated analytical and
program
Enclave Scenarios
Some organized crime groups – including gangs, drug
cartels, and warlords – use violence to develop and retain
control over territorial or social enclaves within states,
such as Jamaica’s garrison neighborhoods, Brazil’s favelas,
or hinterland communities in Somalia, Afghanistan, and
Myanmar. Mark Duffield has described rulers of these
enclaves as local strongmen able to control an area and
exploit its resources while, at the same time, threatening
58. The following section was developed by James Cockayne, one of the principal contributors
to the research project. The examples provided are drawn from the case studies but have not
been tested in-country. For further discussion on the approach, see Cockayne, ‘Chasing Shadows:
Strategic Responses to Organized Crime in Conflict-Affected Situations’, RUSI Journal, April 2013,
vol. 158, no. 2.
central authority or keeping it weak. 59 In these cases, an
organized criminal group can take advantage of the state’s
weak territorial, social, or administrative reach to assume a
governance role within a defined enclave within the state.
As Desmond Arias describes, states can – and frequently do
– extend control over these enclaves through incorporating
these strongmen into the political order, creating a system
of “violent pluralism”. 60 This produces a kind of political
settlement based on indirect rule through criminal proxies
and local powerbrokers. 61 Our research highlights the
prevalence of such systems in Latin America and Caribbean,
and points to signs of a related, but somewhat different
system emerging in Nepal, as Box 1 below explains.
Box 1: Enclaves and Violent Pluralism – from
Kingston to Kathmandu
Armed gangs with historic affiliations to Jamaica’s political
parties dominate working class neighborhoods in the Kingston
and Saint Andrews Corporate Area and the neighboring
municipality of Spanish Town. These armed groups control
‘garrison’ communities, delivering voting blocs to Jamaica’s
two main political parties, while using the communities as
enclaves for drug trafficking, extortion, and violent crime. 62
In many cases, local criminal leaders also seek to control the
structure of local state spending in the areas they dominate,
deciding who will work on street repair projects or on the yearly
efforts to clear the gullies running through the city to prevent
flooding during the rainy season, and controlling government
construction contracts within those neighborhoods. These
gangs also have contacts with Jamaicans engaged in illegal
activities abroad. Transnational networks support small-scale
smuggling operations with Jamaicans sending drugs to the
United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and importing
arms mostly from the United States and Haiti. Funds from these
contacts help criminal organizations offer limited social services
to local residents and provide for a measure of independence
from elected officials. Like many criminal strongmen in Latin
59. Mark Duffield (1998), “Post-modern Conflict: Warlords, Post-adjustment States and Private
Protection,” in Civil Wars, Vol. 1, pp. 65-102: p. 81.
60. Desmond Enrique Arias, “Understanding Criminal Networks, Political Order, and Politics in Latin
America,” pp. 115-135; See also Schulte-Bockholt, Alfredo (2006), The Politics of Organized Crime and
the Organized Crime of Politics, Lanham MD/Oxford: Lexington Books.
61. Mónica Serrano (2002), “Transnational Organized Crime and International Security: Business as
Usual?” in Mats Berdal and Mónica Serrano (eds.), Transnational Organized Crime and International
Security: Business as Usual?, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, pp. 21-22; A. Smart, ‘Predatory Rule and
Illegal Economic Practices’, in J. M. Heyman (ed.), States and Illegal Practices, Oxford: Berg, 1999.
62. Anthony Harriott (1996), “The Changing Social Organization of Crime and Criminals in Jamaica,”
in Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2/3, pp. 68-69.
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Responding to the Impact of Organized Crime on Developing Countries
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