The challenges of illicit economies
Will Jones, Rachael Crook, Nina Hall
Made more than a decade ago, Susan Strange’s statement that organized crime represents “perhaps the major threat to the world system,” indicates the gravity with which policy makers and academics approach the discussion of illicit economic practices. Whether in the form of piracy, prostitution, people trafficking, the sale of counterfeit goods, or the trade of illegal drugs, illicit economic processes are emerging not as small ephemera only of interest to niche specialists, but as an interdisciplinary field of activity shaping individual lives and societies across the world. However, such accounts have often focused on the vast scale and violence of the illicit, with what Peter Andreas has termed “a sky is falling” mentality.