[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v33y2002i5p935-955.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

State Collapse as Business: The Role of Conflict Trade and the Emerging Control Agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Neil Cooper
Abstract
This article examines the role played by conflict trade in the process of state collapse. Conflict trade is defined here as the trade in non–military goods such as diamonds, timber and drugs that finances war. Such trade includes both the export and import of goods to a war zone as well as extra–territorial trade undertaken by supporters of a warring faction. It is argued that the decline of superpower military aid coupled with the broader effects of centre–periphery exploitation mediated through a neo–liberal and western imposed version of globalization has meant such trade has a particular salience both in contemporary conflict and the process of state collapse. Equally, though, the reliance of warring factions on conflict trade means they are also susceptible to changes in the market for their goods, creating a vulnerability that can (and to some extent has been) exploited to promote peace. The emerging control agenda on conflict trade is currently characterized by a number of problems — most notably, the risk that the control of conflict trade might become a substitute for action on arms exports; that international action has largely been undertaken within an inappropriate statist paradigm; that control has sometimes taken second place to economic or strategic interests and that policy has become hostage to a ‘drugs and thugs’ agenda which risks undermining its effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil Cooper, 2002. "State Collapse as Business: The Role of Conflict Trade and the Emerging Control Agenda," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 935-955, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:33:y:2002:i:5:p:935-955
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-7660.t01-1-00255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.t01-1-00255
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-7660.t01-1-00255?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vahabi,Mehrdad, 2019. "The Political Economy of Predation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107591370, September.
    2. David M Malone & Heiko Nitzschke, 2010. "Economic Agendas in Civil Wars: What We Know, What We Need to Know," Working Papers id:3226, eSocialSciences.
    3. David M. Malone & Heiko Nitzschke, 2005. "Economic Agendas in Civil Wars: What We Know, What We Need to Know," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2005-07, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Stel, Nora & Naudé, Wim, 2016. "Business in Genocide: Understanding and Avoiding Complicity," IZA Discussion Papers 9743, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Nora Stel, 2014. "Business in Genocide – Understanding the how and why of corporate complicity in genocides," Working Papers 2014/28, Maastricht School of Management.
    6. Sameeksha Desai & Zoltan J. Acs, 2007. "A Theory of Destructive Entrepreneurship," Jena Economics Research Papers 2007-085, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:33:y:2002:i:5:p:935-955. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.