The overlap of organized crime and corrupt government officials, Part 2
When criminal organizations infiltrate governments, their incentives can undermine democracy and security
In the first part of this series, published two weeks ago, I listed three tiers in which organized crime can overlap with corrupt government officials. Today’s newsletter discusses the incentives created at tier two and tier three levels where there is significant overlap.
Maintain power illegitimately. When a criminal organization has bought off top officials or when top officials have created dedicated criminal networks, it creates incentives to maintain power. Those incentives push directly against democratic values that allow transitions of power to be possible. This hemisphere has already seen multiple cases (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras) in which official corruption drives presidents to steal elections and remain in power undemocratically.
Co-opt security forces into criminal activities. Corruption and organized crime often work to undermine effective law enforcement institutions. The problem becomes more damaging to the country when the criminal organizations co-opt the security forces into assisting their own criminal operations or helping to take down rival criminal groups. Security forces can provide some of the best “muscle” to commit extortion, target rivals and enforce the terms of deals.
Perhaps the most extreme example of this can be seen in Venezuela, where local military commanders engage in extortion and drug trafficking. In the case of Cienfuegos in Mexico, some security force operations were redirected, at times unwittingly, against the opponents of the BLO and Sinaloa Cartels. In Ortega’s Nicaragua, the security forces spent far more time targeting drug traffickers on the Caribbean coast compared to the ones running up the Pacific Coast or along the Inter-American highway.
If security forces can be brought into corrupt activities, then they are also given the incentives to maintain the corrupt system. When the state’s right to a “monopoly on violence” is handed over to a criminal organization, there are no institutions left that can take on that criminal group. Undoing the damage becomes much more difficult because a full overhaul of security forces to remove the profit incentives from their leadership is necessary.
Destabilize other government institutions. The infiltration of organized crime into one government institution can lead to efforts to destabilize or corrupt other government institutions. Corrupt presidencies can work to undermine legislatures or court systems. Corrupt federal governments will work to strip power away from state or municipal level governments.
Some analysts have argued that the implications of this can be seen in Peru in recent weeks. Many of the top politicians in the country are linked to private university scams that allow significant profits and money laundering opportunities (Jo-Marie Burt discusses this in a recent WOLA podcast).
Undermine reform efforts. The pushback against Latin America’s anti-corruption wave has come from the presence of criminal networks within political systems. The highest profile example occurred in Guatemala, where the presence of organized crime within the government assisted in pushing out the CICIG. Those same elements prevented the election of reformist candidates to various offices and have worked to undermine the judicial selection process.
The incentives of corrupt leaders can help predict behavior
There is not always a clear dividing line between corrupt politicians and organized crime. Some of the incentives I describe above can also occur with a particularly corrupt leader that has no ties to criminal organizations. However, at some point, significant corruption becomes its own form of organized crime. It requires networks to launder money, pay off informants and evade detection and arrest.
In either case, understanding the incentives of corrupt leaders and those who are implicated in organized crime can help predict what sort of actions they will take.
Thanks for reading
Feedback on this article and the previous one is appreciated. I hope to continue writing on this in the coming weeks.
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