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.Indeed, concepts of new regionalism and new public policyhave replaced them, and the triumphalist view of globalisation is a cel-ebration of this development.Given the widespread acknowledgementof change in the North, it is curious that development discoursecontinues to have difficulty in formally accepting that something144 Duffield 6a 24/4/07 11:47 Page 145THE GROWTH OF TRANSBORDER SHADOW ECONOMIESsimilar has occurred in the South by developing appropriate tools ofdescription, analysis and, importantly, legitimation.In many respects,spreading non-formal transnational trade networks originating in theSouth are the equivalent of the regional economic systems that haveconsolidated in the North.Like the strategic complexes of liberal peaceand the political complexes of the new wars, they interact with eachother through relations of similarity, accommodation and competition.Whereas Northern regionalised economic systems are accepted, theglobal shadow economy has attracted an ambivalence ranging from asceptical interest to outright criminalisation.In part, this problem relatesto the fact that for development discourse the main problem continuesto be one of defining an appropriate role for the state in relation to theformal market (Moore 1999).Given this preoccupation, one can under-stand that the question of non-territorial and extra-legal activity remainsat best an interesting but second-order consideration.This attitude hasshaped the Cinderella status that such activity has endured.Non-territorial economic systems in the South are essentially extra-legal and evasive in their mode of operation.While often outside formalor state-regulated systems, they operate through complex relations ofcollusion, complicity and competition with these systems.The non-formal status of the shadow economy and the range of organisationalpossibilities involved has led to conceptual difficulties and produced avariety of overlapping terms (Meagher 1998).Ideas of non-formal tradeand economy, for example, have been qualified by a range of termsincluding informal , parallel , second , black , shadow , trans-border , and so on.These descriptions have attempted to captureeconomic activity that is non-conventional, extra-legal, unrecorded,unregulated and cross-border in character.Such activity can relate totrade in both legal and illegal goods and services.While not alwayseasy to distinguish, the former can involve, for example, agriculturalproduce or raw materials produced or purchased through conventionalchannels but traded using extra-legal means and avoiding formal regu-latory mechanisms.The latter, on the other hand, would relate to goodsobtained through illegal means ranging from smuggling and commer-cial fraud through to direct seizure.Within shadow economies, however,both legally and illegally obtained goods are usually traded usingsimilar evasive and extra-legal means.Historically, terms like informal or parallel economy have been used to denote the trading oflegal goods through illegal channels.In this manner such activities havebeen loosely distinguished from more criminal or extensive trans-national trading networks.For the purposes of this book, the distinction between legal and145 Duffield 6a 24/4/07 11:47 Page 146GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND THE NEW WARSillegal goods has been dropped.Given the complexity and multi-levellednature of some of the networks involved, the distinction is not par-ticularly useful.Many local global commodity chains transcend thespectrum of legal/illegal activity (Le Billon 2000).Moreover, it is notthe intention here to add yet another term to those already existing.Rather, the various designations that commonly denote extra-legal andnon-territorial economic activity are taken as suggesting trade that caninclude both legal and illegal goods and, apart from local manifesta-tions, can also be part of more extensive transnational networks,including networks that have varying shades of criminality andviolence attached to them.In this respect, however, it should bestressed that it is assumed that most non-formal economic activityinvolves different types of extra-legal trading in goods that are legallyobtained.While evading state regulations, this trade is not particularlyassociated with organised violence or hardened criminal activity.Indeed, many of the social groups involved may be opposed to suchtendencies for moral, cultural or religious reasons.The extensive andwell-established transnational Hausa Fulani trade networks based innorthern Nigeria, for example, are said to have eschewed trading innarcotics (Meagher 1998).This has been pioneered largely by Ibonetworks (Bayart, Ellis and Hibou 1999 : 10).Moreover, over much ofthe South the informal economy represents an essential lifeline formillions of ordinary people.In many parts of the European East, forexample, the collapse of the social wage inherent within the plannedeconomy has, of necessity, been replaced with informal trade (Schierup1992; Verdery 1996).However, the social and political relationsinvolved in the predominant and non-violent forms of the shadoweconomy, especially their non-liberal character, give important clues tothe nature of the new wars.Manuel Castells has argued that networks constitute the new socialmorphology of the societies we live in
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