Book Review: Menace to Society: Political-Criminal Collaboration Around the World

• Date: 01 March 2007
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567707299323
• Author: Michael J. Gilbert
• Published date: 01 March 2007
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews
International Criminal
Justice Review
Volume 17 Number 1
March 2007 52-79
Godson, R. (Ed.). (2003). Menace to Society: Political–Criminal
© 2007 Georgia State University
Research Foundation, Inc.
Collaboration Around the World. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
http://icjr.sagepub.com
DOI: 10.1177/1057567707299323
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Menace to Society is an interesting reader. It was edited by Roy S. Godson, professor of government
at Georgetown University. He is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar of international
relations and security studies. The contributing authors are subject-matter experts or scholars
specializing in organized crime.
The book presents a series of national or regional case studies of the symbiotic relationships between
the “upper world” of government, business, and civil society and the underworld of organized crime—
the “political–criminal nexus (PCN).” The upper world provides protection and opportunities for eco-
nomic gain to the underworld through corruption. The underworld provides benefits to corrupt upper
world members, allowing them to attain or maintain wealth, status, and political power. Although the lit-
erature on organized crime is large, the literature on the dynamics of the PCN is limited, and few sources
provide cross-cultural examinations of this phenomenon. Within chapters, authors use historical and
qualitative methods to explore the development and influence of a PCN within a nation or region: Sicily
(Letizia Paoli), Columbia (Rensselaer W. Lee III and Francisco E. Thoumi), the United States (Robert
J. Kelly), Nigeria (Obi N. I. Ebbe), Mexico (Stanley A. Pimentel), Russia and Ukraine (Louise I.
Shelley), Hong Kong (T. Wing Lo), and Taiwan (Ko-lin Chin).
The book opens with an overview by Godson, who provides a conceptual framework for assess-
ing PCN structures based on political, economic, and social factors embedded within the nation and
culture. This framework is used in...