Social Network Analysis
Illicit Networks Capturing and
Reconfiguring the State
Luis Jorge Garay Salamanca
Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán
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
Traditional approach...
•
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.
Economic purposes
+
Criminal purposes
Legal agents
+
Ilegal agents
Co-opted State
Traditional
Advanced
State
Reconfiguration
Capture
Capture (AStC)
(StC)
(CStR)
Bribe
+
Violence
+
Instrumental Capture of Institutions
Economic benefits
+
Penal benefits
+
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.
Criminal organizations?
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.
Two basic concepts
Who is the most
connected agent?
Who is arbitrating the
largest amount of
information?
Betweenness degree
Direct centrality degree
Capture and
reconfiguration of
institutions
A few examples...
1. Illicit Network instrumentalizing the national
executive office in Guatemala
Social Network in Guatemala:
•Narcotraffickers.
•Bankers.
•Ministers.
•Public servants.
•A President.
Working together in money
laundering
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)