Rule of law and government effectiveness are two of the most critical sources of order necessary for the economic and social development of nation states across the globe. There are many countervailing forces which can undermine either one, or both, of these processes. The most insidious of these are corruption and transnational organized crime as they suborn nation states from within, enabling internal and external capture of the state by illegitimate interests which work against the interests of ordinary citizens which, ideally, the state has been established to serve.

Data on the factors which undermine rule of law and government effectiveness but strengthen corruption and transnational organized crime are notoriously difficult to obtain because these activities are deeply covert in order to deliberately avoid detection, observation and measurement. This does not mean the task of mapping these phenomena is impossible, it just means it is more difficult and involves looking at them obliquely by examining factors which indicate the presence of defective structures, processes and other sources of poor performance. This approach requires combining available information to best advantage to seek out patterns, associations, data generated questions and observations which can then lead to conclusions about courses of action most likely to generate successful outcomes.

In this webinar, seasoned Security Sector Reform and law enforcement practitioner Dr Tony Murney will explore the international order of states by shining a light onto these interrelated phenomena in ways accessible to practitioners and policy makers. The objective is to parse the world order of states in ways which illustrate the ‘limits of the possible’ and opportunities for engaging ‘the impossible’.