Mafias, Separatists, and States: The Illicit Networks of Power
Since the invention of wealth accumulation, power has been a network force that has plagued and influenced society without end. The ways power structures form and jockey are especially fascinating. While in the modern era, the state largely asserts its monopoly on violence, there are exceptions and from those we see the dynamics of power throughout networks at play. More specifically, the emergence of mafias, separatists, and their interplay with the state creates a fascinating picture of the webs of power and exchange. Danilo Mandic In Gangsters and Other Statesman lays out his model for the interplays of mafias, separatist movements, and host states. Within each arrangement are versions of trading networks where one’s position and power to exclude or exchange is key in the sociopolitical events within a region. In the interplay of mafias and separatism there are four classifications: (host) state-dependent partisan “mafias in uniform,” state-dependent nonpartisan minderbinder mafias (named for the ever-profiting, double-sided, “businessman” in Catch-22), independent partisan rebel mafias, and independent nonpartisan cosmopolitan mafias. The contrast between the minderbinder mafia in South Ossetia, a separatist region in Georgia, and the rebel mafia in Kosovo, separatists from Serbia, is especially of note.
In South Ossetia the mafia worked as a mediator. Ergniti, a town on the Georgia-Ossetian border, was a smuggler’s haven. Corruption on both sides of the border facilitated profit for all. In this trading network, the exchange was at a Nash Equilibrium, all peoples found a market for necessary goods, and the Georgian “gray economy” flourished. Amidst separatist uncertainty, the mafia facilitated an exchange network that was stable and worked for all. This was born of the mutual ground of an illegal economy embedded in an area of limited sovereignty.
For the Kosovar mafia, a different story emerged, explained by the Structural Balance Theory as well as the economics of bargaining and exchange in networks. In this case the players are the Kosovar mafia: the KLA, Serbia (the host state), and Kosovar separatists. Amidst the chaos of the 90s in the Balkans, ethnic tensions sprouted and Albanians within Serbia strove for separation. To balance out the network, the KLA acts as a node to unite with the separatists against the state. The KLA served as a “rejoicing third” who benefitted from the weakness of the state and the desperate need of the separatists. As a separatist movement, the Kosovars lacked resources, support, and consolidation. In this case the KLA, with its transnational criminal reach wielded immense network power, notably in the power to exclude. Without the KLA, Kosovar separatists lacked the means to separate and so alliances were forged. The power of the KLA rippled to affect Serbia as organized crime sunk into Kosovo. From this the KLA co-opted the separatist cause and developed a mafia state within Kosovo, due to its ability to exclude and relative network power as a rejoicing third between state and separatists.
In both these cases, Mandic shows the importance of power within network structures. The power to exclude, mediate, and exude on others are formative matters in global politics. The unique extra-legality of separatist movements and the illegibility of their borders make them a prime economy for often international structures of organized crime. These mafias often position themselves in prime nodal points to play torn states off each other and extract maximum profit. While not indicting separatism as a whole, Mandic instead points to the economic forces that impel rebels to make deals with the devil.