Amorality, Complexity and Cosmopolitan Code

Abstract

That transnational crime, conventionally defined, is increasing in scale and value is not in dispute. So why take a study of crime and security to such lofty heights as complexity theory and meta-governance? Debate about the plurality of international actors or the liberal theory of markets seems, at frst glance, far removed from illegal logging in the rainforests of Brazil or Indonesia! Yet this book was never designed to be a narrative of crime and criminality or of rebellions and counterinsurgencies and counterterrorism operations. From the outset, the aim was to locate crime and security within wider systems of law and governance practice and to explore the systemic nature of transgression, or unlawfulness. The identification of criminals and security threats is, on one level, a matter of detecting criminal enterprise, identifying criminal suspects, apprehending and then punishing those who violate codified law. Within sovereign legal systems this can be relatively as straightforward as catching drug traffickers or persons guilty of murder, theft and a whole raft of objectively defined offences. Here, however, this exploration is concerned with the shifting boundaries of crime and criminality and the contested nature of security space. Crime and security are increasingly interwoven but the mentalité of crime control complements a conservative strain of non-traditional security defined as control or threat disablement. Prone to the simplistic attractions of convergent thinking, responses to real global challenges are consequently unbalanced.