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Covert Netherworld: An Invisible Interstice in the Modern World System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2016

Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred W. McCoy*
Affiliation:
History, University of Wisconsin–Madison
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This essay explores a domain of geopolitical conflict called “covert netherworld” that has been a seminal in world politics for the past half century and likely to become more central in the century to come. During the Cold War and its aftermath, covert netherworlds formed worldwide through confluence of four essential elements: reliance of modern states on covert methods for power projection at home and abroad; the consequent emergence of a clandestine social milieu populated by secret services and criminal syndicates; a complementary illicit economic nexus that sustains non-state actors and sometimes state security; and finally, spatial dimensions that range from a narrow criminal or covert milieu to entire countries or continents. When these elements align, this netherworld can attain the sheer geopolitical power to shape the course of national and international events. To lend substance to these generic elements, the essay explores three arenas of widening geographical scope. At the local level in the southern Philippines, a regional netherworld fostered Islamic insurgency and state counterinsurgency, while national elections were sustained by an illegal lottery, shaping the character of an emerging polity. At the transnational level, France's postcolonial hold on the West African region dubbed Françafrique constrained corruption within state-mediated circuits and entrenched elites at both ends of this bilateral exchange. By contrast, U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan and Central America had divergent outcomes influenced by their degree of congruence with the narcotics traffic, demonstrating that the covert netherworld can exercise sufficient autonomy to be treated as a significant factor in world politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 847 - 879
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2016 

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124 LeVine, Politics in Francophone Africa, 343–46; New York Times, 11 Apr. 2011; John Irish, “French Forces Launch Raid in Niger against al Qaeda Units,” Reuters, 10 Oct. 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/10/us-sahel-france-idUSKCN0HZ1IW20141010.

125 Smith, “Nodding and Winking.”

126 New York Times, 9 Feb. 2007; Smith, “Nodding and Winking.”

127 “France Starts African Cash Probe,” BBC News, 19 June 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6768197.stm; Bruce Crumley, “The Enrichment of Africa's French Allies,” Time, 8 May 2009, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1896891,00.html; Guardian, 9 Nov. 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/09/inquiry-african-leaders-france; Independent, 12 July 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-parisian-treasures-of-african-tyrants-french-government-may-seize-mansions-and-luxury-cars-of-8706535.html.