IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgd/162.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Porous borders: The study of illegal markets from a sociological perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Dewey, Matías

Abstract

State concerns about crime and security issues have strongly affected conceptions of economic action outside the law, a traditional field of research in sociology. This increasing encroachment by policy-related concerns on the intellectual framework of the discipline has led, on one hand, to an almost exclusive focus on criminal organizations in the analyses of illegal economic activity. On the other hand, it has led to the downplaying of the importance of classic topics of sociological reflection, such as the embeddedness of action, the moral dimension of illegal products, or the relationship between social change and the spread of illegal exchanges. This short paper problematizes economic action outside the law by taking legal definitions and their effects seriously. It begins with the problem of naturalizing state definitions. This is followed by a discussion of the illegality of illegal markets, which illustrates sociological contributions. Finally, three dimensions of the study of illegal markets are suggested. Overall, the paper lays out a research program for this field of sociological inquiry.

Suggested Citation

  • Dewey, Matías, 2016. "Porous borders: The study of illegal markets from a sociological perspective," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/129065/1/848736052.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Hackl & Krämer & Ricardo Maronna, 2003. "Book reviews," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 144-146, January.
    2. Beckert, Jens & Wehinger, Frank, 2011. "In the shadow illegal markets and economic sociology," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    3. Bronk,Richard, 2009. "The Romantic Economist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521735155.
    4. Dewey, Matías, 2011. "Fragile States, Robust Structures: Illegal Police Protection in Buenos Aires," GIGA Working Papers 169, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    5. Bronk,Richard, 2009. "The Romantic Economist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521513845.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Copestake & Richard Williams, 2014. "Political-Economy Analysis, Aid Effectiveness and the Art of Development Management," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(1), pages 133-153, January.
    2. Lin, Wanlin & Lin, George C.S., 2023. "Strategizing actors and agents in the functioning of informal property Rights: The tragicomedy of the extralegal housing market in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    3. Bronk, Richard & Jacoby, Wade, 2016. "Uncertainty and the dangers of monocultures in regulation, analysis, and practice," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. JinHyo Joseph Yun & Xiaofei Zhao & KwangHo Jung & Tan Yigitcanlar, 2020. "The Culture for Open Innovation Dynamics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-21, June.
    5. Ambrosino, Angela & Fontana, Magda & Gigante, Anna Azzurra, 2015. "Shifting Boundaries in Economics: the Institutional Cognitive Strand," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201544, University of Turin.
    6. Daniel Leunbach & Truls Erikson & Max Rapp-Ricciardi, 2020. "Muddling through Akerlofian and Knightian uncertainty: The role of sociobehavioral integration, positive affective tone, and polychronicity," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 145-164, June.
    7. Groß Steffen W., 2010. "Warum sich Ökonomen (wieder) mit Philosophie beschäftigen sollten – und Philosophen (wieder) mit Ökonomie / Why Economists should be more interested in Philosophy (again) – and why Philosophers should," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 61(1), pages 75-94, January.
    8. Johnson, Samuel G. B., 2019. "Toward a cognitive science of markets: Economic agents as sense-makers," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-29.
    9. Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, 2013. "Why Economics cannot Explain the Modern World," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89, pages 8-22, June.
    10. Beckert, Jens, 2011. "Imagined futures. Fictionality in economic action," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    11. Bronk, Richard & Beckert, Jens, 2022. "The instability of preferences: Uncertain futures and the incommensurable and intersubjective nature of value(s)," MPIfG Discussion Paper 22/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    12. Ötsch, Walter, 2016. "Imaginative Grundlagen bei Adam Smith: Aspekte von Bildlichkeit und ihrem Verlust in der Geschichte der Ökonomie," Working Paper Series Ök-19, Cusanus Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung, Institut für Ökonomie.
    13. Ryan Walter, 2018. "Book review: Craig Freedman, In Search of the Two-Handed Economist: Ideology, Methodology and Marketing in Economics," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 29(3), pages 367-371, September.
    14. Angela Ambrosino & Magda Fontana & Anna Azzurra Gigante, 2018. "Shifting Boundaries In Economics: The Institutional Cognitive Strand And The Future Of Institutional Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 767-791, July.
    15. Beckert, Jens, 2012. "Capitalism as a system of contingent expectations: Toward a sociological microfoundation of political economy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 12/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    16. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, 2009. "Britain, China, and the Irrelevance of Stage Theories," MPRA Paper 18291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Stefano Spalletti, 2017. "Elementi di pensiero economico nello Stato commerciale chiuso di J. G. Fichte," Working Papers 49-2017, Macerata University, Department of Studies on Economic Development (DiSSE), revised Jun 2017.
    18. Bronk, Richard & Beckert, Jens, 2019. "Uncertain futures: imaginaries, narratives and calculative technologies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103091, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Mario Le Glatin & Pascal Le Masson & Benoit Weil, 2018. "Can organisational ambidexterity kill innovation? A case for non-expected utility decision making," Post-Print hal-01808566, HAL.
    20. Holmes, Douglas R., 2019. "Markets are a function of language: Notes on a narrative economics," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-18, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.