FEATURES Terrorist groups, guerrilla movements, drug smuggling: Mette EilstrupSangiovanni asks whether examining the structural weaknesses of illicit networks holds the key to combating them.
Clandestine networks: how dangerous are they? In a networked organisation, decision-making and action are dispersed through informal, horizontal ties among its members
Networks appear to be defining relations everywhere in today’s globalised societies: international bankers, financial regulators, law enforcement officials, even legislators cooperate informally across borders to share information and coordinate policies. But networks are not confined to the realms of international politics and finance. Arms dealers, drug traffickers, money launderers, people smugglers, terrorists and other sundry criminals, enabled by the newest technologies, increasingly organise into sprawling global networks like that of the infamous al-Qaeda organisation. Dr Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, based in the Centre of International Studies, has been researching the structural properties of networked organisations in international politics. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of networks might open the door to more effective forms of international governance and more innovative ways of combating transnational criminal and terrorist groups.
Networked crime and terrorism Networks feature prominently in today’s international security 22 | Issue 7 | Autumn 2008
landscape. According to many policymakers and pundits, the primary confrontation in world politics in the 21st century is no longer between states but between states and terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda, drug smuggling networks like those in Colombia and Mexico, and insurgent networks such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. And states are widely reputed to be losing the battle. For example, Peter Clarke, who leads the anti-terrorist branch of London’s Metropolitan Police, described the networks of radical Islam as ‘large, fluid, mobile, and incredibly resilient.’ It is this fluid structure that is said to provide terrorists and criminals with multiple advantages, including adaptability, mobility and covertness, and which makes them difficult for more-stable, hierarchical states to combat. Just how do networks differ from hierarchies? Networked organisations are flat and decentralised, with decisionmaking and action dispersed among multiple actors enjoying significant local autonomy and relating to each other through informal, horizontal ties. Hierarchies rely on top-down command, authoritative rules and legal arbitration; by contrast, networks are self-enforcing governance structures disciplined by reputation and reciprocity. Consequently, networks tend to be based on direct
personal contacts among people who share similar backgrounds and goals, and who trust one another. Most current literature on clandestine groups assumes that networks, due to their informal, flexible design, are better than hierarchies at learning, innovating and responding to new situations. However, Dr Eilstrup-Sangiovanni’s research suggests that the many advantages claimed for networks in their competition with hierarchical states rest on a poor understanding of the network form. Scholars and policymakers have tended to overestimate the strengths of clandestine networks through drawing parallels to the world of the ‘company’, where networked modes of organisation have proved highly adapted to the fastmoving global marketplace. Yet, clandestine organisations – whether they are terrorist groups, guerrilla movements or drug smuggling enterprises – face a unique set of constraints that distinguish them from their legal, commercial counterparts and which limit their effectiveness.
An historical approach Although most observers assume that today’s transnational networked threats are new phenomena, opposition to the state has in fact often taken a networked approach, as illustrated by the decentralised Greek resistance to the