Post-Soviet Eurasia: organised crime, variations and political corruption

This chapter traces the developments in organised crime and political corruption in the countries of post-Soviet Eurasia and accounts for the variations in political_criminal collusion. It looks at how geographical location, types of political leadership, presence or absence of natural resources, and the engagement of international actors produce different forms of collusion. It then discusses the purposes for which criminal leaders are usually enlisted by politicians and provides specific examples. It finds that the influence of criminals over the state domain has largely diminished, but the representatives of underworld still prove to be useful proxies in a number of areas, especially during the highly competitive political battles as well as in taxing elusive revenue flows from the informal economy and projecting influence abroad. It is argued that the political_criminal nexus is not a passing stage in state development and proves to be resilient even under the conditions of increasing government capacity and the formalising state.