Karlsruhe Dialogues 2010

Organized Crime - Dark Sides of Globalization

Prof. Dr. James Lawrie Newell

Speaker 

 

Newell

James Lawrie Newell was born in 1959 and is now Professor of Politics at the School of English, Sociology, Politics and Contemporary History (ESPaCH) at the University of Salford/Great Britain. He received his Master of Science in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and completed his PhD thesis on “Labourism, Ideology and The British Middle Class” at the European University Institute of Florence/Italy in 1991. Newell was Director of Politics and Contemporary History Subject Group, School of ESPaCH, Chair of the Boards of Examiners for degree programmes administered by the Politics & Contemporary History Subject Group. Furthermore he has worked as Programme Leader for the BA Politics and BA Contemporary History and Politics degrees and Associate Head (Teaching) and Deputy Head at ESPaCH. Newell has published a great number of books, such as “Organised Crime Economy: Managing Crime Markets in Europe” (2005, ed. with Petrus C. van Duyne, Maarten van Kijk and Klaus von Lampe) and the “The Organisation of Crime for Profit: Conduct, Law and Measurement” (2006, ed. with Petrus C. van Duyne, Almir Maljevic, Maarten van Dijk and Klaus von Lampe). In addition, he has written several journal articles as well as book chapters and working papers about British and Italian politics. Newell organised a seminar series entitled “Public integrity and political reform: British and foreign perspectives” which took place from October to December 2009 and was sponsored by the European Studies Research Institute at the University of Salford. Currently he is preparing proposals for two panels, entitled “Morality, political scandals and the detachment of citizens from the political process” and “Party leadership in Western Europe: Strictly Personal?” to be submitted to the Political Studies Association for the Association’s 60th annual conference, Edinburgh from 29 March to 1 April 2010, and organising on behalf of the Conference Group on Italian Politics and Society, panels entitled “The 2008 Election and the Italian Political System: Quo Vadis?” to be held at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington DC, 3 to 6 September 2010.

 

ZAK asked Prof. Dr. James Lawrie Newell to answer the following question:

Globalization makes it possible that organized crime expands. What can be done against it at the local level?

To be able to do anything about it one must be clear what it is and I am not sure that the distinction between crime that is 'organized', and crime not falling into this category is at all easy to make. I also have doubts about popular impressions - which often link the term with images of large 'underworld multinationals'. The conditions of illegality in which criminals by definition work make it much more likely that what organization there is, is small scale and ephemeral.