Risky business: A risk-based methodology to measure organized crime

This paper describes the result of two studies on the development of a methodology to measure organized crime. The purpose of these studies, tasked by the Belgian Federal Police and Minister for Justice, was to provide a concrete and knowledge-based framework for the drafting of annual reports on organized crime that can give better answers to questions like ‘Is there much organized crime? Is the situation serious? Is it bad that there are more criminal groups now than in the past? Which criminal groups are the most dangerous?’. Two features provide a common thread that binds the methodology: the operating principle of the spectrum of enterprise and the application of a risk-based methodological process to the overall framework. The starting hypothesis is that organized crime is entrepreneurial in nature and that the dynamics of the market space provide the main environment and explanation for organized crime. The application of a risk-based methodology is founded on the recognition that the analysis of organized crime will always depend on imperfect information and resource limitations. Furthermore, the utility of a risk-based approach is seen in the provision of findings that are transparently arrived at with a clearly established framework for prioritization of decision-makers. The proposed methodology consists of three parts: environmental scanning, analysis of organizations and counter strategies and licit and illicit sector analysis.     

Identifying with the Nation: Spain's Left-Wing Citizens in an Age of Crisis

This study analyses the extent, sense, and strategies employed by sympathisers with Spanish state-wide left-wing parties to ‘reconstruct’ their affective ties with the Spanish nation after the ‘monopolisation of patriotism’ by Franco's regime. Such an undertaking is further complicated within the context of economic crisis and intensified peripheral nationalism found in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This article applies qualitative analysis to the discourse of left-wing participants from 11 focus groups held in March 2012 amidst the economic (and political) crisis. As expected, this context of crisis favoured the emergence of explicit discourse on the Spanish nation, providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of its nature. Findings show that welfare nationalism and social patriotism define the kind of attachment developed by the interviewees towards Spain better than the concept of constitutional patriotism, or any kind of ethnic-cultural feeling of belonging.