Rule-breaking, inequality and globalization: the trans-nationalization of Irish criminal gangs

Abstract

This article seeks to situate the emergence of transnational criminal gang networks in Ireland within broader debates about the impact of globalization on Irish society (Coulter and Coleman 2003; Kuhling and Keohane 2007; Donovan and Murphy 2013). As a result of attempts to integrate the Irish economy into global capitalism, the number of jobs available to unskilled and semi-skilled workers in poor urban neighborhoods has reduced since the 1960s. The poverty and misery experienced in these communities as a result of social exclusion has been further exacerbated by those operating on the so-called dark side of globalization (Whitaker 2002). These are members of trans-national gang networks who sell drugs, recruit foot-soldiers and use these neighborhoods as bases for their drugs distribution networks (Hourigan 2011). The article focuses on the impact which this dual negative experience of globalization has had on these communities and devotes specific attention to the emergence of a core leadership strata within these criminal gang networks who are comfortable operating both inside and outside the Irish state. In 2002, Leslie Sklair (2002) created a typology for what he described as the transnational capitalist class, a group who were key drivers of the process of globalization. The article concludes by examining the potential to use this typology to understand the leadership strata of transnational criminal gang networks which have emerged from Ireland.