Global Governance of Illicit Finance

Module Title:  Global Governance of Illicit Finance

Module Leader: Professor Jason Sharman

Overview:

This paper examines global governance responses to cross-border financial crimes like transnational corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. Since the end of the Cold War fears have grown concerning a ‘dark side of globalisation’: criminals and others have been said to exploit the global financial system to evade and undermine state laws and sovereign authority. In response, states, firms, international governmental and non-governmental organisations have jointly constructed a global regime to counter these perceived threats. Though there are many different ways to study these developments, this paper generally does so from the perspective of International Relations. The paper is devoted to analysing questions including: what is the nature of these threats? How new are these sorts of transnational crimes and policy challenges? How did these issues come on to the global policy agenda? Are states losing power to transnational criminals or other non-state actors? Is the ‘dark side of globalisation’ an aberration or an essential feature of globalisation more generally? How is the global governance of illicit finance meant to work and how does it work in practice? To what extent are governance responses to these problems effective? What are the consequences of the global governance of illicit finance for international politics now and in the future? Will international co-operation survive an era of geo-political competition and US unilateralism?