Susi Versus the rest: the political economy of the fisheries industry in Indonesia during Jokowi’s first term

ABSTRACT

Indonesian Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister, Susi Pudjiastuti, has become a political superstar on the back of the media attention gained with her tough stance in fighting illegal fishing since 2014. But, beyond the headlines, little is known of the political struggles unleashed by her approach, on how her policies have affected the political economy of the industry, and on whether her reforms are sustainable. Drawing on over 30 in-depth interviews, this article fills the gap. The picture that emerges is complex and fluid: the minister has made progress in limiting the reach of the foreign-led fisheries mafia, but achieved limited success in convincing Indonesians to invest in the industry or in building a constituency to support her drive. Through the lens of the political economy of the fisheries, this article also offers a window into how politics is contested in increasingly ‘populist’ Indonesia.     

Interviewing serious offenders: Ms. Egghead meets Mr. Gumshoe

Organised crime, due to its intricate nature, is a very challenging as well as less accessible research field. Although difficult to conduct a methodical research on this topic, organised crime, nevertheless, offers a unique opportunity to utilise an interdisciplinary research methodology. This paper describes (multiple) triangulation as an appropriate method for researching the role of culture in the advancement of ethnic Albanian organised crime groups in Europe. Triangulation, for the purpose of the described project, has been used to obtain confirmation of findings through convergence of different perspectives. Interviewing offenders is one of the research methods more thoroughly explained in this paper. The paper too explores some advantages of snowball technique used for interviewing less accessible research subjects. It also discusses various dilemmas, security-related or not, researchers are faced with when intending to interview serious offenders.

Mafia-Related Prejudice and the Rise of Italian Americans in the United States

Italian immigrants to the United States and their offspring have long been the target of prejudicial accusations concerning their allegedly prominent role in criminal activities. This article investigates the influence of such an ethnic bias on their political ascent. Although politicians of Italian descent have benefitted from connections to gangsters and racketeers, especially in the Prohibition years, underworld-related charges have for the most part limited their political success because they have undermined voters' trust in candidates of Italian ancestry. The Mafia-connection stereotype gained momentum in the aftermath of the revelations of the Kefauver Committee in the early 1950s. However, it continued to have significant influence on the election campaigns of Italian Americans at least until Geraldine Ferraro's 1992 bid for the US Senate. Despite the progressive assimilation of Italian Americans, the perception of members of this ethnic group as potential criminals has persisted, and still haunts politicians of Italian extraction. Significantly, even Italian-American candidates have recently resorted to the Mafia prejudice to discredit fellow ethnic opponents.     

Types of organised crime in Italy. The multifaceted spectrum of Italian criminal associations and their different attitudes in the financial crisis and in the use of Internet technologies

This paper discusses the opportunity to differentiate four different criminological types of organised crime in Italy by drawing on a subset of case studies and interviews to law enforcement officers and experts collected for two on-going research projects. We hypothesise that, since these types exploit different social opportunity structures for their criminal activities, they have different capacities of adaptation and react differently when confronted with different kinds of innovations and changes. We test these four types against two significant phenomena that have been deeply impacting Italian society, among others, recently: the commercialization of the Internet and the economic and financial crisis that has hit Europe since late 2008. We conclude that these types offer a valid help to guide our understanding of what organised crime is today in Italy, as well as to assess the capacity of the existing legal framework to properly face all them. These criminological types could also serve as lenses to filter the different experiences of organised crime in other European countries, thus facilitating comparative research.     

华人有组织犯罪

本文对作者进行的多项实证研究进行梳理,通过研究在亚洲和美国的犯罪组织与犯罪网络的历史、结构和犯罪活动,对华人传统的有组织犯罪团伙和新型犯罪网络进行了概览。此外,本文还对这些华人有组织犯罪团伙和其他种族的犯罪团伙及其民间和政府组织之间的关系进行了研究,还探讨了控制华人有组织犯罪的问题和前景。最后,本文探讨了华人有组织犯罪的前景,特别是华人参与跨国犯罪的新生代力量。本文认为并不存在总部设在亚洲某处的、垄断性的、世界性的一个华人黑手党。     

Smoking Guns: European Cigarette Smuggling in the 1990’s

This article concerns European cigarette smuggling over the past decade and examines the actors, structures and relationships which facilitated the illicit trade. It discusses the central role played by actors not traditionally associated with organised crime, such as multi-national tobacco companies, Swiss banks and the state security agencies of various Balkan states. It demonstrates how domestic legislation in Switzerland and instability in the Balkans prevented national law enforcement agencies from effectively dealing with this international network at an earlier stage. The article also focuses on the history of local and national law enforcement investigations as well as the integrated multi-national investigation project later initiated by the EU and member states. The article's conclusions suggest that while smuggling actors have successfully adapted to the process of globalisation – financial and state deregulation – law enforcement agencies remain at a disadvantage as they are hampered by the domestic legislation in nation states such as Switzerland and the United States. While cigarette smuggling was and is a major illicit industry, it has not been the subject of much academic scrutiny. This article, based on field research in the Balkans and EU member states aims to contribute to a broader understanding of a problem involving a multiplicity of criminal actors, states and law enforcement agencies.     

黑社会性质组织犯罪认定若干问题浅析

“打黑除恶”专项斗争开展以来,各级执法部门惩治了一批涉黑案件,也有部分案件因取证、举证、认证各环节的认识差异导致久拖不决,或者轻罪重判、重罪轻罚,笔者对甘肃省境内的涉黑案件进行了跟踪调研,本文试从实践执法的角度对侦查机关如何合理取证、检法两家如何认证的问题作以粗浅探讨。     

From Apalachin to the Buffalo Project: Obstacles on the path to effective federal responses to organized crime, 1957–1967

The Apalachin meeting of recognized underworld leaders from cities across the USA was held in upstate New York on November 14, 1957. The event, well known to historians and justice system officials, has become a textbook case rarely examined for its larger context of how American government officials learned to confront the organization and strength of the American Mafia, later called La Cosa Nostra (LCN). From 1957 to 1967, three presidents, four attorneys general, and hundreds of federal agents and prosecutors traveled an obstacle-filled path toward investigating, indicting, prosecuting, and convicting Apalachin attendees and their successors. Steps were taken to challenge the power of the mob during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, but they were consistently plagued by false starts, frustrations, and side steps. Each obstacle further instructed policy makers, however, on the need for an intensive and coordinated effort grounded in common goals and interagency cooperation. This article considers six key obstacles to the decade-long quest for a concerted federal initiative against organized crime. It examines how the characteristics and the impact of each obstacle contributed to a meandering and slothful federal response to the Mafia’s power. Lessons learned about how to effectively attack the mob were finally implemented in May 1966 when President Johnson institutionalized Executive agency cooperation, making the Attorney General (AG) the focal point in the war on organized crime. One element in this new initiative was known as the ‘Buffalo Project,’ an experiment commencing officially in January 1967 in Buffalo, New York to concentrate intelligence, investigations, and prosecutive resources working across bureaucratic lines to pursue guilty pleas or convictions. The Project, a closely supervised operation directed by the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section (OCRS), was conceptualized as a small team of supervisory federal investigators and experienced prosecutors who built cases against local Mafia associates and leaders to withstand the scrutiny of the federal justice system. Assistance was also rendered by state, local, and international organizations. The Project formed a template for the DoJ Criminal Division’s Strike Force program.

Dirty Businesses in Italy: A Case-study of Illegal Trafficking in Hazardous Waste

This article focuses on trafficking in hazardous and special waste in Italy during the past decade with particular attention to the role played by mafia groups and other legal and illegal actors. A number of examples of illegal management and trafficking of waste are analysed to show the techniques used and the kind of actors involved (traditional mafia-type organisations, corporate entities, legitimate enterprises and businessmen, local authorities and other official actors). It concludes that a number of factors have facilitated and/or enhanced the development and growth of the illegal waste trafficking business (such as the growing demand for clandestine and cheaper services in the sector, the low business ethic of some segments of Italian industry, the delay in implementing proper waste-management policies and legislation, and the low public awareness regarding the threat posed by eco-crimes).     

Buster,Maranzano and the Castellammare War, 1930–1931

More than most issues surrounding the American Mafia, the history of the Castellammare War is contestable at both theoretical and empirical levels. As the alleged pivotal event in the creation of the contemporary structure of the US Mafia or Cosa Nostra, it is of obvious importance as a topic of historical investigation. But a survey of published works on the War and its consequences reveals confusion, inaccuracies, erroneous assumptions and missing information. This is the first major systematic attempt to explore the War and its consequences made since the 1970s. Aside from adding substantially to the stock of knowledge of the War and its participants, debates on the War are critically evaluated, using original source materials where possible. The Castellammare War did not have the ramifications assumed, when placed either in a broader context or from the vantage point of internal American Mafia dynamics.