Provoked by Charles Tilly’s analogy of state-making as organized crime (1985), this issue aims at better understanding … the material conditions of illicit city-making - that is, of urbanization and criminal governance, as well as the …) as akin to the dynamics of organized crime. After all, both seek to establish territorial sovereignty based on their …

that have affected the city’s security: the urbanisation of territorial contestation; violent struggles over authority and … trafficking routes trickling into urban neighbourhoods; the exploitation of vulnerable city dwellers by VNSAs; and the …-off corrupt city dwellers defending their affluent neighbourhoods financed by laundered money. Finally, the article goes beyond …