Themenheft "Staatskriminalität"

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Staatskriminalität: Die Macht, das Recht und die Kriminologie

Aldo Legnaro

Die Kriminologie hat lange Zeit gebraucht, um eine Konzeption von Staatskriminalität zu entwickeln. Dieser Prozess wird ebenso nachgezeichnet wie die Herausbildung völker(straf-)rechtlicher Normen und Institutionen, die Staatskriminalität überhaupt erst definieren. Dabei zeigt sich, dass völkerstrafrechtliche Normen eher Staaten- als Völkerrecht etablieren, da ihre Anwendung ohne Zustimmung betroffener Staaten nicht möglich ist. Recht ist auf diese Weise staatlicher Macht weitgehend ausgeliefert, wie das auch die Responsibility to Protect, das Weltrechtsprinzip und die gerichtliche Bearbeitung des russischen Kriegs gegen die Ukraine belegen. Über solche kriminologisch relevanten Themenkomplexe hinaus wird Klimapolitik, soweit sie in einem Zusammenhang mit Staatskriminalität steht, als Beispiel einer Fragestellung erörtert, zu der Kriminologie einen Beitrag zur Definition und Analyse von Staatskriminalität leisten kann.

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Making an honest buck on war. A biographical understanding of a legal “lord of war”, his banality, and the aspirational society

Yarin Eski

Arms dealers are considered morally corrupt and pure evil, often referred to as ‘merchants of death’ that exploit conflict, war and overall suffering, making money by selling arms and ammunition. This article is based on a biographic study of a legal arms dealer that has revealed there are often banal reasons at play to financially benefit from warfare legally (Eski 2022). A short criminological imagination of the arms trade in relation to war and state crimes shall be provided, followed by a concise methodological explanation of why criminological biographies matter, and why it should matter more in criminology. Then the biographee’s choices and motivations to be a professional arms dealer will be discussed, which revealed deeper narratives on current society’s “biography”, specifically the aspirational society’s. Finally, the conclusion on the interplay between an arms dealer’s biography and that of the aspirational society will be given.

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Toward a Criminology of the Holocaust? A historical overview of “states of denial” to foster a criminological analysis of the Crime of the Century

Valeria Vegh Weis

Despite its still marginal position, state crime criminology has contributed to a criminological agenda that specifically deals with harms perpetrated by states and other powerful actors. Nevertheless, many relevant areas and topics within state crime research remain unexplored, including the study of the “crime of the century”. Indeed, although the Holocaust is often invoked as the paradigmatic case of state crime, little has been produced on the subject by criminologists – an urgent, unresolved task. This article aims at fostering this pending undertaking by engaging with a core notion developed within criminological studies: states of denial (Cohen 2001). This concept is deployed to analyse not only the period where crimes were committed but also the long-durée aftermath in Germany. Concerning the aftermath and based on Olick’s periodization (2013), the study particularly explores the role of the Allies and the (Western) Federal Chancellors in dealing with the atrocities of the past.

Altogether, this contribution, which builds upon the few criminological approaches to the study of the Holocaust (Friedrichs 2000; Karstedt 2010; Morrison 2013), is presented as a limited attempt towards the development of a “Criminology of the Shoah”. Such a criminology cannot only help overcome certain criminological myopia about a breaking point in the history of atrocity crimes but can also help set a strong basis for a broader criminological understanding of atrocities and the massive suffering and challenges that stemmed from them throughout time.

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Diskussionbeitrag

State Crime

Vincenzo Ruggiero

Definitions evolve and are often unable to catch up with the actions they attempt to describe. The following pages intend to convey the definitional uncertainty that surrounds state crime, its ever-changing nature and the permanent difficulties we encounter when trying to grasp its definite features.

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Notat

Zur Kontinuität von Lager und Gefängnis als Teil des Herrschaftsapparates

Helga Cremer-Schäfer

„Es steht zu befürchten, dass totalitäre Tendenzen überall und nicht nur in totalitär regierten Ländern zu finden sind.“ (Hannah Arendt)

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Im Gespräch

Korruption und Staatskriminalität – Perspektiven der (Kritischen) Kriminologie

Walter Fuchs & Dirk Lampe

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