Abduction, state fragility and global security inequality

Ideals of universalism, and the idea that all lives are equally valuable, and should be equally worthy of protection, form a standard narrative for international human rights regimes. However, realities on the ground are marked by the fact that lives are unequally protected. The aim of this project is to study these security inequalities by examining the case of kidnap for ransom. This growing, yet largely unexamined, form of crime, often occurs at the intersection of state fragility and global mobility, and offers a unique insight into global hierarchies of citizenship and security. Which lives are seen as valuable – worthy of abduction and worthy of protection? How do states understand their duty to protect citizens kidnapped abroad? What alternative actors and modes of protection are there? By addressing these questions, the project aims to fill a gap within existing criminological knowledge, which has still to rise to the challenge of systematically addressing issues of crime control and security under conditions of severe state fragility. What happens when the state is unable to fulfil one of its main functions, which is to provide the political good of security? The project aims to develop a criminological understanding of social conditions where the sovereign state – with its prerogatives of prosecution, punishment, and policing – is replaced by a negotiated framework, with amorphous assemblages of security providers, and where notions of justice, rights, legal procedure and accountability lose their traditional salience. In addition to producing unique statistical material, the project builds methodologically on comparative case studies involving several types of victims of different social status, including Western citizens, irregular migrants, NGO workers and employees of international companies. The applicant is a leading scholar in the criminology of globalization and has a proven record of addressing empirically challenging topics.