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- Title
Organized Crimes and Governance Gap in the Conflict Affected North-Western Pakistan.
- Authors
Khan, Asghar; Ahmad, Ayaz
- Abstract
Recently there has been an increase in activities and in the number of organized criminal groups in the North-Western region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. The simple criminals and gangs have been transformed into more sophisticated and organized groups especially during the conflict and post conflict situations. Why is this increase in the number and level of complexity of criminal activities & gangs? Is there weakness in state capacity that has led to the rise of the organized crimes and criminal groups in North Western Pakistan? These questions has been explored by using Migdal's concept of strong societies and weak states as a theoretical framework. The state-centric approach claims that a state always dominates in every affair within its territorial jurisdiction. In a weak state the government does not possess sufficient will, authority and power to ensure the performance of its fundamental functions such as protecting human rights and making available social and economic wellbeing of its population. If the state fails to provide these functions, a power vacuum results leading to the rise of strong societies. Organized criminal groups and criminal economy are indicative of such happening in North-Western Pakistan. Therefore, in the absence of state control, the organized criminal groups fill this governance gap by performing state-like functions in the local community for strengthening their roots.
- Subjects
ORGANIZED crime -- Law &; legislation; PAKISTANI foreign relations; CRIME prevention
- Publication
Pakistan Journal of Criminology, 2018, Vol 10, Issue 1, p84
- ISSN
2074-2738
- Publication type
Article