The emergence, expansion and persistence of corrupt and criminal protection markets

© 2011 Michael John Foster PottengerThis thesis argues that both organised crime and corruption involve individuals facing similar economic and social incentives to engage in and expand the scale of corrupt and/or criminal activity. Despite these similarities, and in spite of the substantial increase in contemporary academic and popular interest in the problems of organised crime and corruption, the majority of political and economy studies of these problems focus on one phenomenon in isolation. This thesis examines the market for protection as an area where the two converge. It does so by taking a rational theory of criminal organisations as producers of protection, and extends that theory so that it is able to account for the organisational motivation and structure of both criminal and corrupt protection. This model is capable of conducting the kind of simultaneous analysis required to understand how and why individuals engage in and cooperate with each other in corrupt or criminal activity. It also reveals the factors and conditions that influence the degree to which such actions become integrated and entrenched. This model is then refined using theories of social capital to incorporate the role of social incentives, roles and identities while remaining rooted in rational principles. The result is a socio-economic model of protection which is compatible with both the organised crime and corruption literatures, which serves to fill a gap between those two literatures, and which also which provides an example of one area in which rational and social theories of politics can be productively combined. The importance and usefulness of such an approach is illustrated in the context of police corruption, in a general comparative analysis of Russia and Italy, and with specific reference to police corruption in Australia. The development and application of the model also reveals incidental policy-relevant insights and avenues for future research, and reinforces the value of adopting an approach that allows for the simultaneous analysis of the problems of corruption and organised crime