Unraveling the Crime-Development Nexus: What might the future hold for global crime governance?

Session Submission Type: Author meets critics

Abstract

Published in 2022, ‘Unraveling the Crime-Development Nexus’ by Jarrett Blaustein, Tom Chodor and Nathan W. Pino interrogates the claim that crime represents a significant threat to economic development. Combining historical analysis with a unique empirical perspective based on interviews with high-level international crime policy insiders, it provides an interdisciplinary account of how and why the ‘crime-development nexus’ has been invoked by international actors, including the United Nations, to advance and secure variations of a global capitalist development agenda since the 19th Century. The critical analysis reveals that the international crime policy agenda remains overwhelmingly responsive to those who benefit from the further expansion of neoliberal globalisation, while simultaneously marginalising subordinate actors throughout the ‘developing’ world. These structural dynamics were institutionalised within the Sustainable Development Goals, most notably through Sustainable Development Goal 16 which deals with ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’. Fast forward to 2025. Recent geopolitical developments and the proliferation of disruptive technologies represent unprecedented sources of change and instability for an already precarious global liberal order. The relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals together with the institutional power of the United Nations appear to be in decline. What do these shifts mean for the future of global crime governance as a field of policy and practice? Are the authors’ prescriptions for change (reforming the United Nations system, facilitating greater civil society participation, and shifting our focus from ‘crime and development’ to ‘harm and sustainability’) still meaningful? What might a fractured international system mean for international attempts to prevent and combat illicit and harmful activities, and how might we start to theorise the implications of these shifts from various vantage points?

Subtopic

• Topic 7: Comparative and Historical Perspectives / Transnational Crime and Justice (Organized Crime WG)

Critics

• Jay Albanese, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Matthew Light, University of Toronto

• Annette Hübschle, University of Cape Town

Book Authorss

• Jarrett Blaustein, Australian National University

• Nathan W. Pino, Texas State University, USA