Violent Entrepreneurs

Violent Entrepreneurs
Author: Vadim Volkov
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2016-03-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501703285

Entering the shady world of what he calls "violent entrepreneurship," Vadim Volkov explores the economic uses of violence and coercion in Russia in the 1990s. Violence has played, he shows, a crucial role in creating the institutions of a new market economy. The core of his work is competition among so-called violence-managing agencies—criminal groups, private security services, private protection companies, and informal protective agencies associated with the state—which multiplied with the liberal reforms of the early 1990s. This competition provides an unusual window on the dynamics of state formation.Violent Entrepreneurs is remarkable for its research. Volkov conducted numerous interviews with members of criminal groups, heads of protection companies, law enforcement employees, and businesspeople. He bases his findings on journalistic and anecdotal evidence as well as on his own personal observation. Volkov investigates the making of violence-prone groups in sports clubs (particularly martial arts clubs), associations for veterans of the Soviet—Afghan war, ethnic gangs, and regionally based social groups, and he traces the changes in their activities across the decade. Some groups wore state uniforms and others did not, but all of their members spoke and acted essentially the same and were engaged in the same activities: intimidation, protection, information gathering, dispute management, contract enforcement, and taxation. Each group controlled the same resource—organized violence.

Violent Entrepreneurs

Violent Entrepreneurs
Author: Vadim Volkov
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2002-08-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801440168

This book explores the economic uses of violence and coercion in Russia in the 1990s through interviews with members of criminal groups, heads of protection companies, law enforcement employees and businesspeople. It also uses journalistic and anecdotal evidence. It shows that violence has played a crucial role in creating the institutions of a new market economy, and describes the competition among so-called violence-managing agencies which have multiplied with the liberal reforms of the early 1990s. Examples of these organizations include criminal groups, private security services, private protection companies, and informal protective agencies associated with the state. The book also examines the organizational bases of violence-prone groups in sports clubs (particularly martial arts clubs), associations for veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war, ethnic gangs, and regionally based social groups. Some groups wore state uniforms and others did not, but all of their members spoke and acted essentially the same and were engaged in the same activities: intimidation, protection, information gathering, dispute management, contract enforcement, and taxation. Each group controlled the same resource-organized violence.

When Violence Is the Answer

When Violence Is the Answer
Author: Tim Larkin
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0316354635

This book could save your life: Protect yourself from violence and learn survival skills for dangerous situations with this essential guide from a former military intelligence officer. In a civilized society, violence is rarely the answer. But when it is, it's the only answer. The sound of breaking glass downstairs in the middle of the night. The words, "Move and you die." The hands on your child, or the knife to your throat. In this essential book, self-protection expert and former military intelligence officer Tim Larkin changes the way we think about violence in order to save our lives. By deconstructing our assumptions about violence -- its morality, its function in modern society, how it actually works -- Larkin unlocks the shackles of our own taboos and arms us with what we need to know to prevent, prepare for, and survive the unthinkable event of life-or-death violence. Through a series of harrowing true-life stories, Larkin demonstrates that violence is a tool equally effective in the hands of the "bad guy" or the "good guy"; that the person who acts first, fastest and with the full force of their body is the one who survives; and that each and every one of us is capable of being that person when our lives are at stake. An indispensable resource, When Violence is the Answer will remain with you long after you've finished reading, as the bedrock of your self-protection skills and knowledge.

The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960

The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960
Author: Anton Blok
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1988
Genre: Mafia
ISBN: 9780881333251

This study seeks to account for the rural mafia in western Sicily in the 19th & 20th centuries through a detailed examination of the overall social networks mafiosi of a particular peasant community formed with other individuals.

Violence

Violence
Author: Slavoj Zizek
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2008-07-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0312427182

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Zizek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in the world.

The Economics of Violence

The Economics of Violence
Author: Gary M. Shiffman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2020-01-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108882838

How do we understand illicit violence? Can we prevent it? Building on behavioral science and economics, this book begins with the idea that humans are more predictable than we like to believe, and this ability to model human behavior applies equally well to leaders of violent and coercive organizations as it does to everyday people. Humans ultimately seek survival for themselves and their communities in a world of competition. While the dynamics of 'us vs. them' are divisive, they also help us to survive. Access to increasingly larger markets, facilitated through digital communications and social media, creates more transnational opportunities for deception, coercion, and violence. If the economist's perspective helps to explain violence, then it must also facilitate insights into promoting peace and security. If we can approach violence as behavioral scientists, then we can also better structure our institutions to create policies that make the world a more secure place, for us and for future generations.

Mutiny and Its Bounty

Mutiny and Its Bounty
Author: Patrick J. Murphy
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2013-03-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300170289

Parallels mutinies in today's business organizations with the shipboard rebellions of old. 15,000 first printing.

How We Win

How We Win
Author: Farah Pandith
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 703
Release: 2019-03-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0062471198

“Drawing on her decades of experience, Pandith unweaves the tangled web of extremism and demonstrates how government officials, tech CEOs, and concerned citizens alike can do their part to defeat it.” – Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright There is a war being fought, and we are losing it. Despite the billions of dollars spent since 9/11 trying to defeat terrorist organizations, the so-called Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and other groups remain a terrifying geopolitical threat. In some ways the threat has grown worse: The 9/11 hijackers came from far away; the danger today can come from anywhere—from the other side of the world to across the street. Unable to stem recruitment, we seem doomed to a worsening struggle with a constantly evolving enemy that remains several steps ahead of us. Unfortunately, current policies seem almost guaranteed not to reduce extremist violence but instead to make it easier for terrorists to spread their hateful ideas, recruit new members, and carry out attacks. We actually possess the means right now to inoculate communities against extremist ideologies. In How We Win, Farah Pandith presents a revolutionary new analysis of global extremism as well as powerful but seldom-used strategies for vanquishing it. Drawing on her visits to eighty countries, the hundreds of interviews and focus groups she’s conducted around the world, and her high-level experience in the Bush and Obama administrations, Pandith argues for a paradigm shift in our approach to combat extremism, one that mobilizes the expertise and resources of diplomats, corporate leaders, mental health experts, social scientists, entrepreneurs, local communities, and, most of all, global youth themselves. There is a war being fought, and we can win it. This is how.

Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists

Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists
Author: Eiko Maruko Siniawer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2015-03-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0801454360

Violence and democracy may seem fundamentally incompatible, but the two have often been intimately and inextricably linked. In Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists, Eiko Maruko Siniawer argues that violence has been embedded in the practice of modern Japanese politics from the very inception of the country's experiment with democracy. As soon as the parliament opened its doors in 1890, brawls, fistfights, vandalism, threats, and intimidation quickly became a fixture in Japanese politics, from campaigns and elections to legislative debates. Most of this physical force was wielded by what Siniawer calls "violence specialists": ruffians and yakuza. Their systemic and enduring political violence-in the streets, in the halls of parliament, during popular protests, and amid labor strife-ultimately compromised party politics in Japan and contributed to the rise of militarism in the 1930s. For the post-World War II years, Siniawer illustrates how the Japanese developed a preference for money over violence as a political tool of choice. This change in tactics signaled a political shift, but not necessarily an evolution, as corruption and bribery were in some ways more insidious, exclusionary, and undemocratic than violence. Siniawer demonstrates that the practice of politics in Japan has been dangerous, chaotic, and far more violent than previously thought. Additionally, crime has been more political. Throughout the book, Siniawer makes clear that certain yakuza groups were ideological in nature, contrary to the common understanding of organized crime as nonideological. Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists is essential reading for anyone wanting to comprehend the role of violence in the formation of modern nation-states and its place in both democratic and fascist movements.