Conflict, Power and Wealth: Organised Crime as an Everyday Phenomenon. A case Study of Greece

Abstract

Research has shown that organised crime (OC) is a powerful and wealthy enterprise with strong ties to politics, businesses and the civil society. A significant portion of organised crime remains invisible to the public, law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Evidently, it is in the interests of political scientists to investigate if this portion of OC that remains invisible (or the portion that becomes exposed) is related to any power structures, bureaucratic predispositions and inequalities. This thesis tackles the following question: Is the visibility of organized crime determined by the social power of the groups and actors that participate in illegal activities? To answer this question, we investigate three criminal networks from Greece.

First, we examine a network of cocaine smugglers (Cocaine Barons), who belong to the shipping community, with high social power and very low visibility. Second, we examine a case study of a group that participates in protection rackets, drug trafficking, smuggling and murders (Godfathers of the night). This group is linked to the Athenian nightlife community and has an average level of social power and visibility. Finally, we have selected to examine the Greek Urban Guerrilla movement as an example with low level of social power and high level of visibility. Although, crimes committed by Urban Guerrilla groups have in most instances political motives, Greek penal law regards such groups as ‘criminal organisations’. We focus our investigation in Greece, because of a very interesting paradox. Although the political, economic and socio-cultural environments in Greece indicate that the country should face similar levels of OC as in Italy, Latin America and the Balkans, the public discourse about the problem of organised crime in Greece is inexistent and politically driven. Our comparative analysis indicates a strong relationship between power, visibility, origin, organisational structure and the degree of symbiosis of the criminal groups with the polity.

Date of Award	1 Nov 2010
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Felia Allum (Supervisor) & Adrian Hyde-Price (Supervisor)