ABSTRACT
The purpose of this concluding chapter is to ‘zoom out’ and adopt a global perspective analytically placing illicit social orders within their proper macro context. This begins by revisiting the juxtaposition between the concept of illicit social order and the framework of a globalizing ‘international order’, illustrating how some territorial social orders around the world exist in violation of the principle of sovereignty and its corresponding norms and institutions. Herein, I return to the earlier discussion concerning the way in which sociological boundary-making and territorial ‘debordering’ – a process germane to the structuration of illicit social orders – raise fundamental questions about the inside/outside problématique that may be better addressed through ‘post-international’ global governance theoretical perspectives. Second, despite their inherently local manifestation, illicit social orders acquire global significance in a global society wherein micro and macro structures are co-constituted and competing claims to authority are contested in local arenas, thus recognizing how social orders are structured from the ground up and incorporating understandings of these micro-level sources of order within a global framework. Finally, I conclude by outlining how, in the context of a changing discipline attuned to plethoric actors and processes constituting global society, the proliferation of illicit social orders sufficiently ‘muddies the waters’ of crystallized, multi-layered state-systemic ontologies to merit further exploration of an agonistic sociological-constructivist theoretical synthesis more conducive to incorporating micro and local processes. Hereby, locally configured illicit social orders can perhaps be better situated, located, and understood within the complex mosaic of fragmented, yet amalgamated structures and institutions germane to holistic understandings of global governance emphasizing the role of agency, ideas, and pluralism.
