ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the concepts of securitization and translation offer useful tools for capturing and reflecting upon the organized crime as a travelling concept processes, focusing analytically on the performative and political effects of concepts and conceptual travel more generally. It provides an overview of securitization theory and translation, followed by a brief introduction to organized crime narratives and their process of transnational spread. The chapter explores the active exportation of the United States concept of organized crime in international cooperation, examining how many partnerships with external actors have taken a securitized form. At its core, securitization aims to conceptually transform the notion of national security into a distinct discursive reading of security practice. In Europe, organized crime narratives gradually entered both European Union and European national discourses in the 1970s and 1980s and initiated a process of translation through voluntary incorporation before becoming part of a wider array of more autonomous European policy measures and narratives.
