Dr Theo Kindynis, Department of Sociology and Criminology, City St George’s, University of London
Former diplomat and international relations scholar Peter Dale Scott first developed the notion of parapolitics, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in mind, to refer to the ‘the conscious manipulation of covert forces’ (2003: 236). In concrete terms, parapolitics refers to covert action, collusion, dirty tricks and (dis)information operations by security and intelligence agencies and their plausibly deniable allies, proxies and front groups. More broadly, the concept refers to ‘a system or practice of politics in which accountability is consciously diminished’; ‘the conduct of public affairs not by rational debate and responsible decision-making but by indirection, collusion, and deceit’; and ‘the political exploitation of irresponsible agencies or parastructures, such as intelligence agencies’ (Scott 1972: 171).
Parapolitics now also refers to a relatively new field of scholarly enquiry that aims to describe and analyse the hidden and powerful interrelationships between security-intelligence apparatuses, terrorist networks and transnational organised crime (Cribb, 2009: 1). By way of example, let us consider the relationship between state intelligence agencies and transnational drug trafficking syndicates described by Alfred McCoy in The Politics of Heroin (1991), a book that has since been described as the definitive and archetypal example of parapolitical research (Cribb, 2009: 2). For McCoy, the CIA’s dealings with cocaine and heroin traffickers in Europe, Central America and Asia is not incidental. Rather, there is a ‘natural attraction’ or affinity between intelligence agencies and narcotraffickers – both are practitioners of the ‘clandestine arts’, distinct in their abilities to maintain large organisations and logistical, financial and paramilitary capabilities, ‘outside the normal channels of civil society’ and without detection (McCoy, 1991: 15). Moreover, the relationship between intelligence agencies and drug trafficking cartels is mutually beneficial:
To gain a covert capacity for operations outside normal channels, intelligence agencies have cultivated alliances with criminals in waterfronts and mountain borderlands. In return for their cooperation, port city criminals get protection that allows them to conduct their illegal business in full view of the state and its police. Similarly, highland drug lords benefit from improved logistics in rough terrain, access to capital for larger opium crops, and improved arms to seize and hold territory. (ibid).
Examples of such reciprocal relationships abound. During its support for the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation the CIA, working through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency ‘allied with Afghan guerrillas, notably Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who used the agency’s’ covert supply of ‘arms, logistics, and support to become the region’s largest drug lord’ (McCoy, 1991: 19). On the continuation of such relationships during the first decades of the 21st Century, see, for example, Harp (2025) and Lee (2009).
For much of the field’s history, parapolitical enquiry has been marginalised within the academy – where the fields of intelligence and security studies are closely aligned with the security state[1] – and has instead been developed in several grey literature periodicals such as The Lobster (UK) and CovertAction Magazine (US). However, in recent years, Robert Cribb (2009), Eric Wilson (2015; Wilson and Lindsey 2009) and others have sought to shore up and integrate a parapolitical approach into critical criminology.
Cribb directs us towards several distinctive features of a parapolitical approach. First, whereas secrecy was previously assumed to be a feature of non-state groups such as revolutionaries and criminals, parapolitics identifies clandestinity as a state attribute. A parapolitical approach holds that ‘clandestine activity by state institutions and by institutions linked to the ruling elite play[s] a major role in sustaining illiberal and anti-democratic features of the system’ (Cribb, 2009: 1). Second, a parapolitical approach is distinguished by its shifting of emphasis away from the state and towards a focus on para-states, quasi-states and other state-like institutions. These include covert entities such as intelligence agencies, secret societies and elite forums and networks; organised crime groups; and revolutionary and terrorist movements (ibid: 4). To this list, we might also add large, powerful multinational corporations such as oil and gas “supermajors” (see, for example, Coll, 2012). Parapolitics takes an agnostic view of the state. Rather than ‘the point of view of the state itself’ a parapolitical approach ‘sees the state as competing for power and legitimacy’ with these ‘alternative power groupings’ (Cribb, 2009: 5). Third, a parapolitical approach departs from analyses of discrete instances of elite wrongdoing and seeks instead to study the apparently structural connections between the security state, big business, organised crime, and so on. Parapolitics ‘does not blame rogue elements or evil geniuses’ (ibid: 7). It seeks instead to examine the political, social and economic structures that permit and sustain parapolitical arrangements and their harmful consequences.
References
Coll, S. (2004) Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. New York: Penguin.
Cribb, R. (2009) Introduction: Parapolitics, shadow governance and criminal sovereignty. In: Wilson, E. (ed.) Government of the Shadows: Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty. London: Pluto Press, pp. 1 – 10
Harp, S. (2025) The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces. New York: Viking.
Lee, R. W. (2009) ‘Parapolitics and Afghanistan’. In: Wilson, E. and Lindsey T. (eds.) Government of the Shadows: Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty. London: Pluto Press, pp. 195 – 204.
McCoy, A. (1991) The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill Books.
Scott, P. D. (1972) The War Conspiracy: The Secret Road to the Second Indochina War. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
Scott, P. D. (2003) Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Wilson, E. (2015) The Spectacle of the False-Flag: Parapolitics from JFK to Watergate. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books.
Wilson, E. and Lindsey, T. (eds.) (2009), Government of the Shadows: Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty. London: Pluto Press.
[1] For example, the editorial board of one of the leading journals in the field, Intelligence and National Security, includes former and current members of the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House, former intelligence agency directors and analysts, and the official historian of MI5.