CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION: Extortion Racket Systems

The GLODERS project ("Global Dynamics of Extortion Racket Systems) will be hosting an academic conference to review and advance current understandings of the spread of extortion racket systems (such as the varieties of "Mafia" and similar organisations) in Vienna, 3 and 4 December 2012.

Papers are invited on the following and related topics:

* Reviews of the current distribution of Extortion Racket Systems (ERS) globally and in specific countries

* Descriptions of the structure and organisation of ERS

* Analyses of the social, economic and cultural conditions under which ERS prosper

* Explanatory accounts of the reasons for the success or failure of specific ERS 

* Commentary on the migration of ERS from one country or sector to another

* Computational studies of ERS

* Databases and data mining tools to gather information on ERS

* Reviews of counter-ERS policies and their effectiveness

* Assessments of the expected future for ERS world-wide

Legal, criminal justice, policing, criminological, and other perspectives may be employed.  

Contributions in the form of papers of 2500 - 8000 words are welcomed.  The conference will also include round table and panel discussions - suggestions for topics are welcome. There will be an opportunity to present posters.

Participants from academia, policy and operational organisations are all very welcome. 

Deadlines:

Submissions for papers and posters should be sent to <[log in to unmask]> by 1 November 2012.

The deadline for registration is 15 November.  Registration is by completion of the form at <http://bit.ly/TnCwD6> and costs £80 (about €100), including proceedings, lunch and coffee breaks.  Queries should be addressed to Lu Yang <[log in to unmask]>.

The GLODERS project is partially funded by the European Commission's Framework 7 programme.  It aims to study and analyse Extortion Racket Systems, with a focus on the social, economic, cultural and institutional conditions in which they thrive and the dynamics of their migration from one society to another; develop and demonstrate information technology tools for the construction of policy-relevant cognitive and normative multi-level agent-based models from large volumes of qualitative, textual data; and use these models to identify system patterns of interest to local, regional and multi-national law enforcement decision-makers.

The conference will be held at the University of Vienna.  The campus is near the historic heart of Vienna, a city with many attractions and good air links from Europe and beyond.  Vienna hosts a Christmas Market in December.