Social Network Analysis Illicit Networks Capturing and Reconfiguring the State

W O R K S H O P:“How to tackle the different faces of state capture?14th International Anti-Corruption Conference 10-13 November 2010, Bangkok, Thailand

www.14iacc.org www.iacconference.org www.twitter.com/14iacc

Luis Jorge Garay Salamanca

Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán

• People have often thought that as a rule, organized crime confronts the State. However, the history of the relationship between the State and organized crime is not always one of confrontation.

But...• In some cases organized crime has been able to

infiltrate and to co-opt some State institutions in order to achieve its unlawful objectives.

• On the other hand, government officials and politicians, in many cases, get along well with organized crime, taking advantage of its criminal power in order to obtain egoistic, exclusive and morally unlawful benefits.

Traditional approach...

Traditional State Capture (StC)

Legal agents

Bribe

Economic benefits

Economic purposes

+Ilegal agents

+Criminal purposes

+Violence

+ Instrumental Capture of Institutions

+Penal benefits

Co-opted State Reconfiguration

(CStR)

Advanced State Capture (AStC)

+Social benefits

Co-opted State Reconfiguration“The action of lawful and unlawful organizations, which through unlawful practices seek to systematically modify from inside the political regime and to influence the drafting, modification, interpretation, and application of the rules of the game and public policies. [These practices are undertaken] with the purpose of obtaining sustained benefits and ensuring that their interests are validated politically and legally, as well as gaining social legitimacy in the long run, although these interests do not follow the founding principle of social welfare”

Garay et al. (2009). Illicit Networks Reconfiguring States.

Different types of illicit networks

(i) Lawful = Only by bright agents.

(ii) Unlawful = Only by dark agents.

(iii) Undefined = Dark + Bright, or by grey agents.

It can be therefore expected that StC and CStR situations are examples of grey networks.

The lawful agent (bright) is that agent who belongs to a lawful organization and plays a lawful functional/ institutional role.

The unlawful agent (dark) is that agent who belongs to an unlawful organization and plays an unlawful functional/institutional role.

Criminal organizations?Criminal organizations?

Who is the most connected agent?

Who is arbitrating the largest amount of information?

Direct centrality degree

Betweenness degree

Two basic concepts

Capture and reconfiguration of

institutions

A few examples...

Social Network in Guatemala:

•Narcotraffickers.•Bankers.•Ministers.•Public servants.•A President.Working together in money laundering

1. Illicit Network instrumentalizing the national executive office in Guatemala

2. Illicit Network instrumentalizing the local executive office in a Colombian town

Mayor of a Colombian town

3. Colombian Paramilitary group:

- Instrumentalizing political institutions (parties).

- Capturing the National Agency of Intelligence

4. Mexican Cartel capturing several institutions.

4. Mexican cartel and their relations with public servants.

What institutions are affected?

At what administrative

levels?

SNA as a tool for Institutional Diagnosis (SNAID), it is possible to determine to what extent a CStR process, has

affected the institutional context of a State.

Concentration of Social Relations (Familia Michoacana)