The Informer
The Informer blog provides a platform for academics, policymakers and practitioners to discuss their work and research and to share their opinions on organised crime.
We collaborate with the European Consortium for Political Research's Standing Group on Organised Crime (ECPR-SGOC), one of the standing groups of the ECPR. The editorial board includes representatives from the University of Bath, Oxford University, the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Sao Paulo, Sofia University and Flinders University.
16 August, 2018
Nicholas Lord, Liz Campbell and Karin van Wingerde
In July 2018, a joint report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Egmont Group provided an overview of the range of techniques and mechanisms that criminals use to obscure their...
10 August, 2018
James Windle
There are many ways to research organised crime and illicit enterprise. One of the most useful – yet underused – is historical research. This article argues that historical research should be used...
2 August, 2018
Dwight Smith
This is the second of two Informer blogs by Dwight Smith examining how we think about organised crime. The first part was published on Monday 30 July.
Initially, organised crime...
30 July, 2018
Dwight Smith
This is the first of two Informer blogs by Dwight Smith examining how we think about organised crime. The second part will be published on Thursday 2 August.
In October 1965, I was...
24 July, 2018
Andrea Varsori
Being a criminal in Rio de Janeiro has never been a safe business, but this year it’s more dangerous than ever. On February 16 2018, Brazil’s federal government took over the administration of...
18 July, 2018
Daniela Irrera
Terrorist attacks have always historically shaped public attitudes and behaviours across Europe. The sense that terrorism is a danger to the lives of ordinary people and the perception that...
10 July, 2018
Derek Johnson, Justine Wilkinson
The year 2013 brought us the now infamous ‘Horsemeat Scandal’, providing the public with a previously unthinkable indication of the scale of crime in the UK’s food supply chain. Recognising the...
2 July, 2018
Simon Avery
“Serious organised crime” can be a confusing thing. It is a concept which lumps together such diverse issues as drugs, cybercrime, money laundering and modern slavery; it incorporates everything from...
26 June, 2018
Roberta Damiani
Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, published in the early 1990s, is one of the most influential books in comparative politics. The book sought to investigate...
21 June, 2018
Jane Schneider
The locution “criminal organisations” works better than “organised crime” for drawing attention to variation along the following lines. Different categories of organisation have distinctive revenue...