TERRORISM AND ORGANIZED CRIME AS OVERLAPPING SPHERES

Abstract

The problem of terrorism and organized crime represents a persistent threat to the contemporary world society which also has serious effect on global security. Despite the difficulties of defining these terms and setting them in a firm scientific framework, both terrorism and organized crime were distinguishable based by their goals and groups' agenda until recently. In the last three decades, since the end of the Cold War, both terrorism and organized crime are expressing clear tendencies to merge their operations in order to accomplish but also expand their interests. This convergence is mostly propelled due to the lack of state-sponsored terrorism but also as a consequence of an ever-growing phenomena of the so called failed states. These failed states or black-hole countries are regions with no effective state governance or authority. Failed states have become „safe heavens” to many armed groups while also creating a fertile ground for the development of organized crime which in these regions inevitably comes in contact with terrorist organizations. Following the integrative narrative of the contemporary world both of these illegal groups are trying to expand, inevitably coming in contact with each other and eventually converging thus forming a hybrid organization. Ironically enough, although the convergence gives greater opportunities to these illegal groups it also alienates them from their primary goals that is especially evident in the evolution of terrorist organizations. This article sheds light on a relatively new but rather unexplored security phenomena with a great potential to destabilize not only certain regions of the world but also to seriously deteriorate stability of the most powerful countries thanks to its transnational character.