Black Markets, Broken States, and the Rise of the Warlord Entrepreneur
March 23, 2015
This densely academic set of essays about drug cartels and violent insurgencies will be absolutely gripping for the right audience. The focus is on the importance of non-state actors—whether they are hackers, Wall Street corporations, Afghan tribal leaders, or Indian left-wing insurgents—in the modern geopolitical landscape. The authors look at how these actors disrupt the modern economy, provide pseudo-governmental services, and figure into both contemporary globalization and possible future changes brought about by climate change and regional instabilities. This is not a light read, but anyone with sufficient prior background in political science and theory should be fascinated by the breadth of topics covered. The non-state actors surveyed are loosely organized into the definitively destructive (Mexican drug cartels), the ambiguous (India’s Maoist Naxalite guerillas), and the positive (George Soros). While such a wide-ranging collection can provide only the beginning of insight into these complex topics, it will ably serve to whet the intellectual appetites of its readers.