SOC ACE is pleased to publish The ‘Dark Side of Globalisation’? Anti‑Illicit Trade Discourse and the Role of Ideas in the Fight Against Globalised Economic Criminality by Adam Blanden, Dr Mayya Konovalova and Prof Sami Bensass.
‘Illicit trade’ is now a familiar term in policy circles, often described as a global network of criminals exploiting open trade regimes. But whose ideas have shaped this category, and with what consequences? Drawing on 52 interviews with representatives of international organisations, government agencies, private firms and NGOs, alongside documentary and media analysis, the authors show that anti-illicit trade discourse developed gradually, largely among actors in the Global North and well below the radar of national politics, long before today’s geopolitical tensions brought trade security to the fore.
The paper traces three threads: how multinational tobacco companies reframed cigarette smuggling as organised crime; how counterfeit goods governance gained prominence as export capacity grew in China and the Global South; and how data-driven risk profiling is used to target trade-based money laundering. Combining polycentric governance with organisational stigma theory, the authors find that this discourse tends to raise the enforcement and rhetorical stakes around discrete smuggling activities while neglecting the systemic drivers of globalised economic crime. It also disproportionately stigmatises particular trade actors, potentially contributing to the securitisation of global trade and weakening the political will needed to tackle illicit finance at its roots.
The paper forms part of the SOC ACE project Smuggling along the new Silk Road: the role of Global Trade Hubs (GTH). The project uses mirror trade statistics to assess how trade hubs along China’s maritime Silk Road may facilitate smuggling and illicit financial flows. Its focus on how stigma attaches to certain hubs, such as the Seychelles, and how it persists, connects directly with this paper’s analysis, offering policymakers a more evidence-based approach to assessing and categorising trade hubs’ exposure to illicit finance.
