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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2009. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed June 15, 2009). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

The thesis contains three main Chapters in which the relationship between organised crime and corruption is studied from different perspectives. Chapter 2 presents a theoretical framework for analyzing the interactions between corruption and organized crime, together with the individual and combined effect of these phenomena on economic performance. We show how organized crime on its own reduces entrepreneurial activity, and how organized crime in conjunction with corruption may reduce such activity to a lesser or greater extent. Chapter 3 presents an empirical investigation into the impact of corruption on economic growth in the presence of organized criminal activities. Using a panel of 19 Italian regions for the period 1983-2009, the analysis reveals that corruption and organized crime have independent negative effects on growth, and that the effect of either is less severe when the other is also present. Chapter 4 presents a further empirical investigation which examines the determinants of organized crime and of common crime in a panel of Italian regions over the period 1983-2003. The analysis shows that both organized and common crimes respond symmetrically to certain drivers, but asymmetrically to others.

This dissertation addresses organized crime in post-Soviet Eurasia (Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan) exploring the nexus between politics, business and crime. Based on extensive field research in the three countries the dissertation examines organized crime groups in the region and describes their inter-relationships with political and business elites, then discusses the impact of the three countries’ Coloured Revolutions on crime and corruption. The impacts of the revolutions on organized crime are situated in several variables, among them political opposition to incumbent regimes; the strength of civil society and the role of organized crime groups during the revolutionary processes; personal morals of the leaders and their views on cooperation with organized crime; and the presence and nature of the “pact” between outgoing and incoming elites. The dissertation also takes into account larger explanatory variables, such as geography, natural resources, industry, and regional wars and documents their role in shaping organized crime. In accounting for the diverging patterns of the three countries in terms of post-revolutionary effects on crime and corruption, the role of the West, defined as a “push” factor for democratization, and the experience of earlier statehood are also considered. The interaction between elites and criminals is regarded as a crucial part of state formation, and is characterized by shifting dominance between the actors of the underworld and upperworld. The thesis identifies points of cooperation and conflict between licit and illicit actors, and provides insight into the collusive nature of criminal networks in the post-Soviet context, arguing that the distinction between licit and illicit is frequently blurred and the representatives of the upperworld are sometimes key participants in organized criminal activity.