THE STATE AND TRANSNATIONAL ORGANISED CRIME: A CASE STUDY OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN ZAMBIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Concern with the role of weak states as incubators of transnational organised crime was a recurrent theme in research in the 1980s and 1990s. It was recognised that due to deep-seated institutional failures, instability and impoverishment, weak states were considered as crime-facilitative environments, in which transnational organised crime flourished and criminal organisations found rewarding opportunities and enjoyed high degrees of immunity. But although a growing body of academic literature has argued that drug trafficking simultaneously plays an important role in undermining state institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, there is very little evidence to support the claim. Most studies on transnational organised crime and drug trafficking have focused on security issues and the harmful effects of drug trafficking. Few have examined in detail the link between weak state capacities and the growth of transnational organised crime, especially drug trafficking.
While most studies seem to suggest that drug trafficking has tended to corrupt African politicians (‘narco-corruption’), little attention has been paid to the role of political elites in facilitating drug trafficking and eroding the capacity of state structures to carry out their traditional functions. Building on the work by Mark Shaw on the elite as a ‘protection network’ and Jean-François Bayart and others, on the concept of ‘criminalisation of the state’, this thesis demonstrates that the growth of drug trafficking is a function of the active collusion of state officials and criminal networks. The Zambian case demonstrates that the relationship between the state and organised crime, especially drug trafficking, solidified in the last decade with some top members of the state and ruling party being closely associated for private benefit with known members of criminal networks. Through this association the Zambian state was captured by criminal networks such that the state has failed to perform its Weberian functions in a systematic, predictable, organised, and effective manner.
Based on interview data with key informants, the analysis of official reports, secondary literature and content analysis of mass media reports, the thesis addresses some important gaps in our understanding of the relationship between weak states and the growth of transnational organised crime. Overall, this thesis contributes to the raging debate in academia about the African post-colonial state. The thesis makes three important contributions. First, it revisits the efficacy of the weak state thesis in relation to drug trafficking and demonstrates that drug trafficking per se does not contribute to state weakness, but rather it is the symbiotic relationship between state officials and criminal networks that is responsible for undermining and eroding traditional functions of the state. Second, the study broadens Mark Shaw’s characterisation of drug trafficking as facilitated by an ‘elite protection network’ to encompass the various ways in which state officials facilitate drug trafficking beyond providing protection of the drugs trade and dealers. Third, the study shows that the sustainability of organised crime, especially drug trafficking, is only possible in conditions where the state itself is the promoter of criminality, as was the case in Zambia in the period 2011 and August 2021. It is argued that the ‘state capture’ thesis is a powerful explanatory theory of why law enforcement agencies and criminal justice system become ineffective in enforcing rules and containing drug trafficking as top members of the political establishment tend to be either directly or indirectly involved the drugs trade.