Beyond necessity: Hezbollah and the intersection of state-sponsored terrorism with organised crime

ABSTRACT

The world is arguably experiencing a resurgence of state-sponsored terrorism. Meanwhile, the crime-terror nexus is seen as a continued threat to global security and stability. However, there has been little attention paid to the use of organised crime by state-sponsored terror groups. This is because existing literature views the use of criminal fundraising as an alternative to state-sponsorship. Despite this, there are numerous examples of state-sponsored organisations which nevertheless engage in organised crime. This paper addresses this puzzle by comparing two competing theoretical approaches on the crime-terror nexus. Current literature tends to either focus on responses to economic necessity at the group level or on the broader structure of opportunities and constraints. A congruence analysis will be conducted using the case of Hezbollah to test these approaches to the specific issue of state-sponsorship and crime. The main finding is that approaches rooted in opportunity structures have significantly more explanatory power than those focused on group level motivation and necessity. This paper also finds a more complex role for state-sponsors with some states actively enabling crime. This suggests the need for an understanding of terror and crime which focuses on the internationalised political context as well as internal group dynamics.

KEYWORDS:

• State-sponsored terrorism
• Hezbollah
• organised crime
• opportunity structures
• political economy

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Professor Matthijs Bogaards, Professor Adrian Florea and Dr Huseyn Aliyev for their support and supervision, and to Claire Elliott for her help and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Odin Shaw

Daniel Odin Shaw is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow focusing on non-state armed actors and post-conflict violence, as well as the contentious politics approach to studying conflict.