A Brief Review of the Institutional Impact of Political-Criminal Alliances: In Search of a Suitable Theoretical Framework

Criminal organizations are capable to make political connections with public servants at different levels (i.e., local, national and transnational). This article provides a review of the literature on the power of the political-criminal alliances to affect the democratic institutions of the State. It also seeks to provide a theoretical framework appropriate to evaluate the impact level that the partnering between criminals and public servants has on the state’s scaffolding. The academic work by some experts in criminology has examined the different political impacts that such alliances imply, which includes problems associated with the decay of the criminal judicial system and the creation of impunity umbrellas. However, to date, this research has not provided a theoretical and methodological framework enough to evaluate and measure the true impact of the political-criminal alliances on the state’s institutions. Just a few scholars from different fields such as the economics and political science have based their researches on set of theories of systemic corruption and network theories in order to measure the political impact that groups outside the law have on the state. This review stresses the importance of these theoretical concepts in order to evaluate the impact of the political-criminal alliances on the institutions, and provides recommendations for future empirical researches and to set out new theories within the same field.