Criminality, Political Power and Conflict

The departure point of this book is the understanding of politics and criminality as two historically differentiated domains of human activity that are different but interrelated, and often co-constitutive and overlapping. In everyday political and domestic life, distinguishing between what is political and what is criminal is achieved through different processes and at different territorial levels. These liminal and overlapping areas between the political and the criminal are highly contested spaces. This book argues against ahistorically drawing a separating line between political armed mobilisation and economic crimi­nality. Each chapter shows that not only insurgents, separatists and other political rebels but also the State and elites can, and generally must (because war waging is not cheap), engage in differ­ent forms of economic criminality as a result of their political status. In no longer separating criminality and politics, this book is able to offer new concepts with which to analyse civil war, political power and criminality.