Human Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Border Control: Vicious or Virtuous Cycle?

Working Manuscript

August 2011

Nazli Avdan

nazli.avdan@univ.ox.ac.uk

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 Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Border Control: Vicious or Virtuous Cycle?

Introduction

The last decade has given rise to a burgeoning literature addressing the changing

contours of the security landscape in world politics (2004, 464; Buzan et al. 1998; Salehyan

2006). From one perspective, the changing security environment is attributed to the rise of

non-state actors (Kaldor 1999). As wielders of “informal violence”, non-state actors challenge

state sovereignty by capitalizing on secrecy, surprise, and trans-border mobilization. The

emergence of non-traditional threats also challenges the traditional assumptions of geopolitics

which rest on a strict spatial demarcation of the state system (Agnew 1994). The ascendancy

in importance of non-state threats entails that the state’s borders---the “hard shell” of the

state1, fundamental to the earlier realist perspective— no longer function as a defensive

perimeter but instead serve as a conduit for flows of information, goods, capital, and

individuals.

From another vantage point, however, the redefinition of the security context states

find themselves in is intimately tied to globalization (Keohane 2002). On the one hand, the

communication avenues and transport technologies that facilitate cross-border social and

economic exchange between states are exploitable by non-state actors. On the other hand, the

processes and repercussions of globalization in terms of political, social, and economic

transformations in developing countries, growing disparity in wealth form the foundation for

1Although Herz (1968) introduced the term of hard borders, as Agnew notes, the territorial bias defined the thinking
of a broader range of classical realists and moreover, was foundational for neorealism’s strict separation of domestic
and international spheres, as encapsulated by Waltz’s (1979) ordering principle.
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informal spread of violence. In sum, globalization provides the opportunity and willingness

for non-state actors to threaten state security in ways uniquely different from military threats

from state actors.

These two strains of scholarship—new security studies and globalization literature—

offer insights into how the security paradigm in international relations is reshaped and how

states’ security interests are, in turn redefined. This expansive debate notwithstanding, much

less attention has been paid to the interrelationship between states’ policy responses to the

changing international environment and new security challenges. Exploring the (reciprocal)

ties between policy and context is integral to assessing the effectiveness of policy-making

given non-traditional security threats. An important insight from the economics of

globalization literature is that interdependence imposes constraints on state behavior—in

essence providing a “golden straitjacket”—whereby states’ policy decisions are affected by the

decisions of other states and in turn have repercussions for other states in the system

(Friedman 1999; Held 1999). Building on social complexity theory, I apply this insight to the

security sphere of policy-making and argue that states’ policy responses and the security

threats they encounter are characterized by a symbiotic relationship. My theory posits that

states respond rationally to dilemmas of globalization but these responses in turn alter the

context in which policy-making occurs, through a feedback mechanism. More specifically, by

concentrating on transnational organized crime as a type of non-state actor, I explore states’

border control policies to combat and mitigate an egregious and widespread form of crime:

human trafficking.

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 Why focus on human trafficking? First, human trafficking underscores the

transnational nature of security threats from non-state actors. In the last few decades

trafficking has become a global phenomenon that traverses interstate borders and recruits

perpetrators internationally and constitutes a multimillion dollar business. Although the exact

magnitude of the problem is hard to specify, the U.S. Department of State estimates that there

are more than 12 million victims of human trafficking globally. Second, traffickers threaten

states’ security interests on several levels. On one level, trafficking poses a problem for local

governance and human security. On another level, crime may be destabilizing at the global

level by leading to a corruption of civil society (Shelley 1999). Perhaps on a deeper level,

transnational trafficking imperils state sovereignty: precisely because trafficking networks can

operate in a surreptitious manner and gain covert access to states’ territories, they undermine

states’ control over borders and territory, a fundamental pillar of state sovereignty. 2

Furthermore, as Salehyan (2006) notes, while states enjoy a monopoly of force domestically,

their policing force is constrained by international boundaries, granting additional leverage to

criminal networks in circumventing state authority. Last but not least, human trafficking is

unique among types of organized crime in imposing a normative burden on states to engage

in counter-crime efforts (Hathaway 2009).

The decision to concentrate on states’ border and migration control policies to model

the interrelationship between transborder crime and states’ policy responses is guided by

several motivations. First, borders delineate the reach of state authority and mark the extent

2 In terms of Krasner’s (1999) dimensions of state sovereignty, loss of control over borders entails weakening of
interdependence sovereignty.
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of territory over which states enjoy monopoly over coercive force (Salehyan 2006). Effective

monitoring of borders is essential to countering non-state actors: migration and border control

policies serve to deter and screen out clandestine undesirables (Andreas 2000, 2000). Second,

states’ border and migration policies capture states’ efforts to counter threats that might

weaken their sovereignty.

This paper makes several theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature.

First, by focusing on border control policies, I address a current debate in the transnational

crime literature, encapsulated by two competing propositions (Salt 2000). On the one hand,

trafficking is posited to have thrived as a result of lax controls at borders. On the other hand,

however, more stringent controls are held to give rise to a demand for traffickers, as

prospective migrants are forced to use illegal channels. Whereas both propositions make

intuitive sense and are grounded in empirical observations by policy analysts, there is a dearth

of studies that systematically examine these propositions. I seek to address this shortcoming

in the transnational crime literature by employing a simultaneous equations framework to

explicitly model the relationship between states’ border control policies and the prevalence of

human trafficking in origin countries. Second, this paper makes a broader theoretical

contribution to recent security studies. By unpacking the relationship between states’ policies

and the security context, I show how states’ decisions are structured by new security threats,

and how the threats evolve in response to changes in states’ policies. By doing so, I address an

important theoretical question in international relations: to what extent is state sovereignty

eroding in the face of non-traditional security threats? Finally, from a policy perspective,

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whether the feedback mechanism between policy and context can be characterized as a

virtuous or vicious cycle has implications for the effectiveness of states’ polices to countering

transnational organized crime.

The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. The first section provides a survey of the

literature on transnational organized crime, while emphasizing the consequences for state

security in the context of globalization. The next section offers an overview of scholarship on

human trafficking. The third section draws on feedback mechanisms in international relations

to tease out the causal linkages between states’ border policies and human trafficking threats.

The empirical section utilizes ordinal measures for trafficking threats in countries of origin

and transit, collected from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global

Patterns, an annual survey of human trafficking, and data on states’ visa policies to test the

hypotheses derived from the theoretical framework. The final section concludes with a

discussion of results and implications for policy.

Transnational Crime, Globalization, and Security

Like other transnational threats, organized crime embodies the darkside of

globalization. While liberal institutionalists have emphasized that transnational processes

exert a positive and integrative effect on world politics, criminal organizations represent a

more malevolent kind of transnational actor (Adamson 2006; Williams 2001). Driving home

the seriousness of the security threat posed by trafficking and referring to the problem as the

“the New Evil Empire”, a 1994 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies

speculated that organized crime was the greatest threat to democracies since the fall of

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 communism (Raine and Cilluffo 1994). As developments in technology and communications

enhance the interconnectedness of countries, illicit flows of individuals have assumed a global

character. The decrease in transaction costs has enabled illicit traders to operate much more

easily across interstate boundaries (Shelley 1999). Referring to human trafficking as a form of

modern-day slavery, Bales stresses that processes of globalization and crime have become

intertwined: “slavery has become ensnared in the process of globalization, being driven

deeper into the illicit economy. In sum, the transformation of slavery is an example of the

globalization process, taking place in the shadows, and is little observed and less understood”

(Bales 2000, 464) .

Moreover, beyond the fact that international migration and expanding transnational

crime are spurred by economic globalization, the very process of globalization has accentuated

the linkages between the two phenomena (Koslowski 2001). The increase in migration and the

formation of migrant networks has created new opportunity structures for transnational

crime. 3 Consistent with this theme, the social and economic transformations produced by

globalization create an expendable supply of labor vulnerable to trafficking. To illustrate, the

socioeconomic demands of globalization in post-colonial countries eroded traditional ways of

life; the demands of rapid development coupled with an explosion in population widened the

opportunities for organized crime (Berdal and Serrano 2002). As a second example, rising

unemployment and economic inequality following the fall of communism and the consequent

dismantlement of welfare safety nets provided the push factor for an outflow of economic

3Recruitment based on ethnic loyalties is an example. Marginalization of migrants in Europe might propel poor
migrants to participate in crime in exchange for material compensation. See Bovenkerk 1993, cited in Williams 2001.
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migrants from Eastern Europe. The services of traffickers and smugglers became attractive for

prospective migrants lacking the economic means to gain legal access to developed countries.

At the same time, globalization creates a demand for cheap illicit labor in destination countries

(Clark 2003). As such, the demand for cheap or free labor is consonant with other labor trends

that make use of short-term foreign labor; these trends in turn are an outgrowth of economic

globalization (Koslowski 2001).

A related phenomenon is that economic and social transformations in these societies

have also given rise to instability, which in turn breeds corruption of governmental officials

and institutions, empowering organized crime (Bales 2000). At the same time, globalization

bolsters the perception of relative deprivation as it expands the worldview of the vulnerable

and lures them to seek better prospects in economically developed countries (Feingold 2005).

While deregulation of global markets exacerbates the economic vulnerability of populations,

corruption renders possible the illicit use of violence, making for a breeding ground for

organized crime. Far from being an outcome of economic globalism, transnational crime is

embedded in and exploits the technologies and processes of globalization and is intimately

tied to the weakening of governmental authority. Just as multinational corporations take

advantage of trans-border forms of structuring and production, illicit networks make use of

non-hierarchical means of organization and mobilization to minimize risk, increase profit

margins, and evade governmental surveillance.

The parallels between legitimate global corporations and organized crime have led

several scholars to reconceptualize organized crime as a business. Crime networks operate as

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 an intermediary system facilitating illicit human mobility from origin through transit to

destination countries. The role that intermediaries play is made possible by the

commodification of migration (Salt 2000; Salt and Stein 1997). The reconceptualization of

smuggling and trafficking of humans as a business moves away from the traditional

understanding in which migrant flows are simultaneously determined by choice of the

individual on the one hand, and on the other, the policies of destination governments. The

“business” of trafficking involves high turnover as globalization feeds supply in origin states

and demand in destination countries. Furthermore, the transnationalization of organized

crime entails minimized risk and increases profitability as networks exploit differences in

regulatory mechanisms and penal codes across countries, recruit internationally, and seek

markets to increase profit margins (Williams 2001). 4

Transnational organized crime may be a security problem on several levels. First,

organized crime endangers domestic stability by breeding corruption and usurping legitimate

channels of economic exchange. The same civil society networks that make up the

international public sphere become conduits for transnationally organized illicit activities

(Mittleman and Johnston 2000). Crime may inculcate dependence at the local level on illicit

4 Williams notes that the advantages of networks are manifold and are not exclusive to criminal organizations. The
capacity of networks to coexist within and outside of larger organizations, their ability to facilitate transfer of
information and commodities lends them an elusive quality. The network model renders organizations hard to
identify and detect by law enforcement. Not only are such organizations clandestine but they also lack a center or
focus of gravity insofar as they are dispersed in their operations. Transnational criminal networks are further poised
to exploit differences in national regulations and legislation, making them harder to track down and prosecute.
Additionally the ability to cross borders entails that such organizations choose countries for operations to minimize
risk and maximize profit margins. Flexibility and informal organization also shields such organizations from
dismantlement and grants them a considerable degree of resilience; even if parts of the organization are destroyed,
other cells can take on their functions.
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revenue and undermine legitimate economic transactions, drive away business, and hamper

cross-border trade (Apap et al. 2002). The existence of drug cartels in Mexico for example pose

a risk for foreign direct investment insofar as potential violence perpetrated by organized

crime networks figures into the cost-benefit calculation of investors (Archibold 2011). Second,

transnational crime spawns domestic instability and has deleterious effects for the stability of

societies it penetrates (Kara 2009). For weak or failing states, such instability may prove fatal

as influxes of resources that sustain local crime networks may undermine states’ abilities to

maintain authority over certain areas and engender dependence on crime in local economies

(Adamson 2006). Third, organized crime may feed off of domestic conflict and exacerbate

violence. Sudan is a case in point: human trafficking networks exploited the breakdown of

order during Sudan’s civil war with the result that enslavement of civilians for forced labor or

sexual exploitation by militias—some of which were tied to the government-- became rampant

(Bales 2000). Fourth, organized crime corrodes the rule of law in societies it permeates and

compounds corruption of public officials, thereby weakening governmental authority

(Jonnson 2009).

Importantly, the very nature of transnational crime endangers state sovereignty;

parallel to other types of “clandestine transnational actors”, organized criminals can initiate

and sustain operations outside of the bounds of state authority (Andreas 2001). Finally, policy

analysts and academic pundits have elaborated on the linkages between organized crime and

other types of non-state actors that threaten state security. The same networks often branch

out to various types of illicit activity: smuggling of contraband, nuclear weapons, drugs, and

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 humans (Salt 2000). Moreover, recent work has emphasized the close ties between terrorist

organizations and criminal networks; terrorist and criminal organizations not only share

organizational and operational characteristics and exploit the technologies of globalization but

also become entrenched in domestic environments with high levels of corruption and weak

state capacity (Sanderson 2004). 5 Especially with the decline in state sponsorship in the post-

Cold War era, terrorist organizations have resorted to organized crime to finance their

operations. Examples abound: from PKK in Turkey, FARC and Shining Path in Colombia to

ETA in Spain; in short, the lines between terrorist activity and trans-border crime are often

blurry (Bibes 2001; Sanderson 2004; Simmons and Lloyd 2010).

Human Trafficking as Organized Crime

Although this paper concentrates on human trafficking as organized crime, trafficking

arguably raises several issues from the perspective of human rights and women’s rights. 6 It is

worthwhile to briefly review the literature from human rights and gender perspectives

because we would expect normative and ideational concerns raised by human trafficking to

condition states’ responses concomitantly with the security externalities trafficking generates.

In fact, the organized crime “frame” through which states react to trafficking is relatively new

(Simmons and Lloyd 2010). Debates on the issue of trafficking on the international arena have

evolved through stages whereby the emphasis has shifted from public order and virtue at the

5 As Sanderson notes, even terrorist organizations that do benefit from state sponsorship, such as Hezbollah,
complement their revenues by engaging in trans-border crime.
6 In using the term organized crime I acknowledge that not all forms of human trafficking are perpetrated by

organized networks. As Feingold (2004) notes, human trafficking networks—such as the ones in Southeast Asia—are
sometimes disorganized and depend on a small group of individuals with loose ties. However, for the purposes of
this paper, the key ingredient is that these networks operate across borders, rely on secrecy, may traverse interstate
borders surreptitiously, and engage in illicit trafficking of humans.
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 turn of the century to human rights and human security in the early 1990s and more recently

to transnational crime.

Earliest perspective on human trafficking stressed the rights of vulnerable sectors of

the populace—women and children—and referred to the problem as the “white slave trade”, a

proxy term for prostitution. The earlier feminist perspectives on the issue surfaced in

response to the notion that the white slave trade presented a peril for the virtue of women and

a threat to public morality (Lobasz 2009). Concerns over societal virtue culminated in initial

attempts at international cooperation to thwart trafficking: 1921 and 1933 League of Nations

Conventions on the Traffic in Women and Children followed by the 1949 UN Convention for

the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.

This body of scholarship also formed the precursor to contemporary feminist debates on

human trafficking, structured around the criminalization of prostitution, the rights of the

trafficked, and the definition of exploitation. 7 The policy-minded strain of the literature is

concerned with the efficacy of penal measures –criminalization or legalization of prostitution,

prosecution of traffickers—as counter-trafficking efforts. The theoretical literature is instead

interested in expanding the definition of exploitation to include sexual as well as other types

of forced labor and in exploring the social construction of the problem.

The human rights body of scholarship shares with feminist approaches to trafficking

the emphasis on human rather than state security (Gallagher 2009). Rather than strictly

focusing on the victimization of the exploitable, however, the human rights prism draws

7 The feminist literature on the topic is far too complex and broad to permit a full exploration in this paper.
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attention to a number of human rights violations involved in trafficking: violation of the

freedom of movement, the right to dignity, freedom from inhumane treatment, and in extreme

cases, the right to life (Gallagher 2009; Hathaway 2009). The human rights perspective

emphasizes the coercive aspect of trafficking and sets it apart from other forms of irregular

migration. Championed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty

International and international organizations (IOs) such as International Organization for

Migration (IOM), it places states under a moral obligation to honor their human rights

commitments (Gallagher 2001; Hathaway 2009). From a policy vantage point, scholars of

human rights exhort governments to undertake measures to protect the rights of the trafficked

and stop treating them as illegal migrants (Clark 2003; Hathaway 2009).

Although the human rights discussion drew international attention to the issue of

trafficking and propelled efforts at cooperation to combat traffickers, it was the linkage to

transborder organized crime that ultimately brought the issue into the global limelight

(Gallagher 2009). The specter of trafficking as crime that covertly crosses borders situated the

issue squarely in scholarly debates on loss of control over territory and consequent attenuation

of sovereignty in the face of globalization. Trafficking is widespread and global: the US

Department of State estimated that there are over 12 million victims of trafficking (State 2010).

Furthermore, like other forms of organized crime, trafficking is a lucrative business, ranking

third in revenue generated after trafficking in drugs and arms (Interpol 2011). Representing

another manifestation of the negative externalities associated with globalization, human

trafficking threatens states’ security interests in ways parallel to other forms of organized

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crime. Thus, trafficking threatens the state’s management of flows across borders, leads to loss

of governmental authority, and undermines public order and rule of law. It is a danger to the

state’s territorial sovereignty because on the one hand, traffickers may cross borders in a

surreptitious manner. On the other hand, trafficking leads to corruption of border and

immigration officials, further weakening governmental control over borders (Kara 2009).

Additionally, instead of constituting a departure from other types of criminal activity, it

complements “more traditional criminal activities such as drug trafficking, vehicle theft, arms

trafficking, and money laundering” (Bales 2005, 135). Policy analysts concur and further note

that not only is trafficking intimately intertwined with other forms of crime, but is often times

hard to distinguish from illicit activities such as smuggling of migrants (Naim 2005).

Despite the commonalities it shares as a security threat with other forms of organized

crime, human trafficking embodies several additional costs. For one, trafficking has

detrimental effects on the demographic makeup of origin or transit countries, as evidenced by

the cases of Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine (Shelley 1999). For both destination and origin

states, trafficking entails a public health hazard, with the possibility of spreading

communicable diseases (Simmons and Lloyd 2010). From another vantage point, due to the

issues of human rights and gender it raises, trafficking in individuals imposes a moral cost for

both source and host countries. Destination states face a normative commitment to counter

human rights violations: as an ergo omnes norm, the eradication of slavery, as enforced by the

International Court of Justice places states under an obligation to the international community

as a whole (Hathaway 2009). On the flip side, transit and origin states that fail to develop and

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 institutionalize effective mechanisms for prosecuting traffickers, preventing trafficking, and/or

protecting victims encounter condemnation by the international community (Cho et al. 2011).

These states are subjected to “naming and shaming” through annual reports published by

destination states and international media and at the extreme, face sanctions for lack of

genuine efforts to combat trafficking (Simmons and Lloyd 2010). 8

A further distinct aspect of human trafficking is that it is inextricably tied to the

securitization of migration. Notwithstanding the fact that it does not constitute a traditional

military threat, human mobility threatens security on several fronts: as a challenge to internal

security (rule of law and public order), cultural security (identity and belonging), and the

welfare state (drain on economic resources) (Huysmans 2006). At the domestic level, beliefs

that trafficking jeopardize state security are fostered by public perception that similar to other

forms of clandestine migration, trafficking violates borders, threatens internal stability, and

exploits loopholes in border and migration control (Apap et al. 2002). On the global level,

trafficking is also connected to changes in the international context that have given rise to the

securitization of migration: the end of the Cold War, the dismantling of internal borders

within the European Union, and globalization (Adamson 2006; Faist 2005). As a matter of fact,

trafficking as a problem of transborder crime gained salience in part as a result of migration

pressures European countries grappled with in the post-Cold War environment (Simmons and

Lloyd 2010). Concerns over irregular migration in particular precipitated a series of

8 I leave aside the question of effectiveness of sanctions against origin states. As Feingold notes, new sanctions are
likely to be applied against countries that already face sanctions such as North Korea and Burma. Moreover,
threatening sanctions against unresponsive states such as China or Saudi Arabia may backfire by squashing dialogue
and diplomacy.
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 international measures, led by European countries, to cope with trafficking. The culmination

of the process was the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its

Protocols and the creation of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Convention, operating under the

auspices of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 9 In effect, linking the issue of

trafficking to security threats from migration instead of limiting the debate to one of human

rights and exploitation of women propelled international efforts to counter human trafficking

and bolstered interstate cooperation.

From a related angle, human trafficking is mired in global controversies on irregular

migration. Precisely because traffickers exploit the same supply of prospective migrants that

lack the legitimate means of access to states’ territories, trafficking and smuggling are closely

connected (Graycar 1999; Naim 2005). Above and beyond targeting similar populations, the

same networks may perform both trafficking and smuggling operations, use the same tactics

to avoid surveillance by governmental authorities, flourish in similar socioeconomic and

political domestic contexts, and employ similar strategies to obtain funding and recruits.

These similarities have compelled scholars and governments to view the two issues as two

ends of the same continuum, despite the call by human rights activists and agencies to stop

treating the trafficked as illegal migrants. Moreover, the distinction between other forms of

undocumented migration and trafficking is often hard to ascertain. 10 When the limited

9 The supplemental Protocols of the UN Convention are: Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Trafficking Protocol) and the Protocol against the Smuggling of
Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, the Protocols are legally binding
instruments that oblige ratifying states to devise measures against transnational organized crime.
10 Lobasz points out that individuals who rely on traffickers may not necessarily be aware of the kind of work

involved or the conditions of debt bondage but are aware that it will be low-cost and uninsured.
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 information that prospective migrants is taken into account, it becomes clear that migrants

who seek the professional assistance of smugglers may fall prey to traffickers (Sharma 2005).

Even when individuals voluntarily seek traffickers to facilitate access to territories and are

aware that they face low-wage work as recompense for traffickers’ services, trafficking may

involve elements of smuggling. In the latter case, the trafficked intend to cross states’ borders

in a clandestine and unauthorized manner (Apap et al. 2002; Friebel and Guriev 2006; Lobasz

2009). 11

To recapitulate, given the normative and security costs of human trafficking, we would

expect states to design policies to counter trafficking. In other words, expectations of norm-

driven logics of appropriateness and interests-driven logics of consequences converge in

predicting states’ policy responses (Avdeyeva forthcoming; Goldstein and Keohane 1993).

Border and migration control policies are foremost in the arsenal of measures states may take

to cope with the problem of trafficking. Arguably, states may devise a variety of policies to

combat trafficking: domestic measures such as workplace sanctions, training of law

enforcement officials, legislation that penalizes traffickers and protects the rights of victims, or

international measures such as cooperation under the umbrella of international treaties,

participating in interstate forums, sharing of technical assistance and information with other

countries targeted by trafficking networks (Friebel and Guriev 2006). Among these, bolstering

border controls and tightening migration regimes constitute the first line of defense against

11While smuggling and trafficking conjure images of clandestine border-crossings, this is one of the many methods
smugglers and/or traffickers employ to access states’ territories. Thus, illegal migration may transpire not only when
borders are crossed surreptitiously but also when the identification and visa documents are forged or in the cases of a
legitimate visa, if the migrants overstay the terms of the visa permit.
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 clandestine transborder actors such as traffickers and smugglers (Neumayer 2006; Thielemann

2006). 12 This paper is concerned with this particular category of policies because more so than

domestic or international efforts against trafficking, border and migration control mechanisms

seek to mitigate the loss of territorial sovereignty arising from human trafficking.

Border and migration control instruments attempt to preserve states’ territorial

sovereignty by denying legitimate access to undesirables, screening out potential security

threats, and deterring clandestine entry. When the deterrent and screening functions of

border policies are considered, a straightforward expectation would be that more discerning

and stringent controls work toward ameliorating the problem of human trafficking. However,

policy analysts suggest that this picture might be too simplistic. On the one hand, stronger

border and migration controls have gained appeal precisely because porous borders have

been posited as the culprit in breeding and emboldening trafficking and smuggling networks.

On the other hand, however, policies have had perverse consequences: instead of dampening

the prevalence of organized crime, tightening of borders has resulted in a greater reliance by

migrants on illicit networks (Apap et al. 2002; Feingold 2005). Feingold underscores the

possibility of a vicious cycle whereby stringent border controls and the global tightening of

asylum admissions only drive desperate individuals to recruit the help of smugglers and

traffickers. Yet, at the same time, trafficking provides the rationale for tighter controls; in

12In the migration literature policies may be categorized according to the location of control: thus, workplace
sanctions constitute downstream policies that seek to regulate irregular migration after individuals have crossed a
state’s borders. In contrast, visa and on-site border policies such as militarization and fencing of the border are
upstream in the sense that they seek to deter illegal migration.
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 essence, “the trafficking issue is often used—some would say hijacked—to support policies

limiting immigration”(Feingold 2005, 27). 13

In sum, states face a catch-22 situation: transnational organized crime may be rooted in

weak controls and lack of governance in border zones but at the same time, uncompromising

migration control policies create an atmosphere that is unwittingly conducive to the operation

of trafficking networks. Yet these propositions remain untested. I seek to redress this gap in

the literature by explicitly modeling the purported feedback loops. From a methodological

standpoint, insights from the existing policy literature point to possible endogeneity: states

devise policies to counteract security threats from human trafficking but these security threats

may not be treated as exogenous factors. Conceptually, this mechanism highlights potential

reciprocity between states’ border and migration control policies and the security context

associated with trafficking. With this in mind, I draw on feedback effects in world politics to

formulate a theory of state behavior given security threats from traffickers.

Feedback Effects in International Relations: Theoretical Foundations to States’ Border

and Migration Policy Responses to Human Trafficking

A number of features of systems theory make it suitable as a theoretical foundation

toward understanding states’ border and migration policy responses to human trafficking.

First and foremost, systems theory recognizes complexity in global politics by acknowledging

13It is worth mentioning that perverse or unexpected effects are not unique to border and migration control. As
Feingold point out, other legal efforts such as governmental sanctions may have perverse –unexpected consequences.
The case of Burma illustrates this point: the legal requirement that women be accompanied by male relatives when
visiting border areas has increased the cost of travel for women and rendered them dependent on facilitators for
international travel, thereby increasing their vulnerability vis-à-vis traffickers.
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interconnections between actors in the system and reciprocity between actors and the

environment (Jervis 1997). Complexity entails that policies enacted at the current time period

might have lagged effects manifesting several time periods in the future and function through

ripple effects through which other actors in the arena are affected by a state’s policies. As a

result, systems-level theorizing necessitates a distinction between short-term and long-term

impact of decisions and accounts for the possibility of unintended consequences. I propose

that a systems perspective is integral to theorizing about states’ responses to organized crime,

given that a fundamental (untested) proposition in the literature is that while states formulate

policies to counteract short-term security threats, these actions generate long-term

consequences through a variety of mechanisms. Another crucial observation based on the

literature is that states’ policies modulate the security climate by influencing both the demand

for trafficking and smuggling operations and the supply of individuals seeking facilitators to

cross borders in a clandestine manner. These insights ultimately cast doubt on the

effectiveness of states’ policies in the face of organized crime. I argue that before the question

of policy effectiveness can be discussed, it is important to specify how states’ policies interact

with the security environment.

Systems-theory allows non-linear relationships between cause and effect and is thus

conducive to modeling feedback loops such as the one proposed to characterize border

policies and organized crime. More specifically, we may conceive of three ways through

which such non-linearities may occur: Jervis labels these first, second, and third interactions

(Jervis 1997). With first interactions, the effect of variables depend on the levels of other

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variables; we may think of these as classic interaction-effects frameworks where effects are

non-additive and conditional (Brambor 2006). Second interactions refer to cases in which

actors’ strategies are contingent on the strategies of others. This scenario has been addressed in

international relations (IR) literature for example by exploring policy contagion, learning and

emulation between states (Simmons and Elkins 2004) or by explicitly modeling how states

condition their behavior on the expected behavior of others (Signorino 1999). Applied to the

topic of human trafficking, we might imagine first-level interactions taking place if the impact

of trafficking on states’ policies depends on other explanatory factors such as domestic

macroeconomic context or regime type. More recently, scholars working on trafficking have

brought attention to second-level interactions by examining emulation and learning across

types of counter-trafficking measures (Cho et al. 2011). It further stands to reason that second

type interactions apply to the topic at hand to the extent that states anticipate negative

externalities from other states’ policies (Simmons and Lloyd 2010). To illustrate, faulty

regulatory mechanisms in transit or origin countries may exacerbate the problem for

destination states; alternatively, other destination states’ stringent border policies might

redirect clandestine flows toward states with permissive border policies.

Although these mechanisms are interesting in their own right and merit scholarly

attention, this paper deals exclusively with the third kind of interactive dynamic: the

interrelationship between states and the context that engenders organized crime. As Jervis

elucidates, in order to trace circular causal relationships, researchers need to identify the

starting point of the mechanism at hand (Jervis 1997, 79). At the outset, tighter policies of

21
control over borders might seem attractive to destination states for a number of reasons. First,

migration pressures generate fears over loss of territorial control; clandestine entry is

intrinsically antithetical to state sovereignty. Second and related, states are in a position of

asymmetric vulnerability with respect to non-state threats: because transnational criminal

networks can mobilize across borders, can evade detection, shift their loci of operandi, are

hard to detect and identify, and resilient in the face of efforts to dismantle them, border and

migration control assume increased importance (Keohane 2002; Williams 2001). Third, the

securitization of migration highlights the negative externalities from all types of flows of

individuals across borders; a laundry list of threats are posited to accrue from porous borders:

spread of militancy, disease, crime, transnational terrorism, illegal migration, and organized

crime (Huysmans 2006; Lavenex 2001; Neumayer 2006).

Although scholars are careful to distinguish between legal and illegal flows, stricter

policies serve as an across the board mechanism to target all aspects of human mobility

detrimental to states’ interests. Fourth, while border control is not the only policy instrument

at the disposal of destination states, “downstream” policies to counter crime such as

workplace sanctions and changes to the penal code might not be equally effective in

preventing illicit access to states’ territories (Thielemann 2006). In that sense, on-site border

protection measures such as installment of physical barriers, militarization of borders,

deployment of policing forces, and deterrent policies such as stringent visa policies are better

equipped to prevent unauthorized border crossings (Donaldson 2005). Similarly “upstream”

measures that impose sanctions on origin and transit states and international cooperation

22
efforts to counter the problem at large might not be conducive to reducing directed threats

from origin states. Finally, border and migration policies also serve the purpose of

strengthening public perception of governmental efficacy and alleviating public fears over loss

of authority over borders (Andreas 2000).

H1 (Border Policies): Prevalence of human trafficking increases the probability that

destination states will impose tight border and migration policies against origin and transit states.

Border policies however do not emerge in a vacuum; instead they generate

repercussions that affect the security context in non-trivial ways. I propose that the feedback

loop may follow two competing pathways. First, we might imagine a virtuous cycle scenario

in which border and migration control policies mitigate states’ asymmetric vulnerabilities vis-

à-vis non state actors. While states are limited in their capacity to track down and punish

traffickers, stringent policies raise the costs for trafficking networks to operate and undercut

the expected revenues from trafficking operations. This in turn might have a number of

consequences. Strict controls by a subset of states might redirect trafficking to other

destination countries (Cho et al. 2011). If a cascade-effect occurs whereby a sufficient number

of destination states tighten up their borders, organized crime networks may be compelled to

restructure operations to other types of crime. Because trafficking relies on smuggling

operations or the forging of documents, stricter on-site or deterrent policies are expected to

have a direct effect on this form of organized crime. Additionally, tight border and migration

control might serve as a signal for how seriously the destination state considers the issue; to

the extent that it is correlated with other measures against traffickers, it might deter organized

23
criminals from targeting that state. In other words, more stringent policies raise the expected

costs for human trafficking by increasing the cost of operations or the probability that

traffickers will be caught.

H2 (Trafficking: Virtuous Effect): Tighter border and migration policies will result in

decreased levels of human trafficking in origin and transit states.

Alternatively, tighter policies might have consequences contrary to what they intend to

achieve, creating a vicious instead of a virtuous cycle. Stricter border and migration control

may embolden organized crime networks by fostering the market for traffickers and

smugglers. At the same time that tight policies raise the costs for traffickers, they also make it

more costly for prospective migrants to obtain legal access to destination states. More

importantly, policies such as visa restrictions make international travel more difficult for

precisely the group of potential migrants vulnerable to exploitation by crime networks:

individuals lacking financial means and credentials to pass the requirements to obtain legal

permits for territorial access. Moreover, restrictions on human mobility reflect a tension in the

globalized economy: while restrictions on other factors of production—capital and goods—are

increasingly relaxed, labor remains subject to limitations (Freeman 1995; Hollifield 1992, 2000;

Rudolph 2006). In that respect, traffickers feed off this tension by facilitating labor mobility,

albeit through illegal channels (Apap et al. 2002). Tighter policies exacerbate this tension,

increasing demand for intermediaries to facilitate labor mobility. Finally, efforts to curb illegal

migration may render desperate individuals seeking to cross borders more dependent on

intermediaries to facilitate clandestine access. As destination states increase protection across

24
borders, smuggling and trafficking operations become more complex and specialized. To

recapitulate, tighter controls increase the demand for traffickers and at the same time, force

traffickers to innovate, both of which in turn amplify the predominance of human trafficking.

H3 (Trafficking: Vicious Effect): Tighter border and migration policies will result in

increased levels of human trafficking in origin and transit states.

Modeling Border Policy and Human Trafficking

The unit of analysis for the model is the directed dyad; this allows for a differentiation

between origin and destination country when examining the relationship between border

policies and organized crime. The dataset is cross-sectional and employs data on border

policies, organized crime, and human trafficking for 207 X207 directed dyads and independent

territories. A single equation model would be inappropriate in testing the hypotheses laid out

in the previous section. I posit a reciprocal relationship between policy and crime, either in

the form of a beneficial feedback loop whereby stricter policies reduce human trafficking or in

the form of a vicious cycle through which stringent border controls exacerbate trafficking. A

single estimation framework to estimate the effect of crime on border policies or vice versa

would not only miss part of the story but also lead to simultaneity bias. In effect, the

theoretical argument calls for a simultaneous equations framework. Consequently, the model

requires two endogenous equations with two dependent variables.

Border policy equation

Hypothesis 1 focuses on the impact of human trafficking in the origin state on the

border policy of the destination state vis-à-vis the citizens of the origin. The border policy

25
equation models policy as a function of human trafficking in the origin state and a number of

push and pull factors for migrant flows as well as dyadic traits expected to shape border

controls.

𝐵𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑦 𝐴

= 𝛽10 + 𝛾11 (ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔𝐴 ) + 𝛽11 (𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐴 )

+ 𝛽12 (𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑒𝐴 ) + 𝛽13 (𝐺𝐷𝑃𝑝𝑐𝐵 ) + 𝛽14 (𝑑𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦𝐵 )

+ 𝛽15 (𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦2𝐵 ) + +𝛽16 (𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑚𝐵 )+ 𝛽17 (𝑑𝑦𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑒𝐴𝐵 )

+ 𝛽18 (𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑦𝐴𝐵 ) + 𝛽19 (𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑖𝑒𝐴𝐵 ) + 𝜀1

Border Policy: Visa Restrictions

Border policy is operationalized through a dichotomous indicator for visa restrictions

enacted by the destination state against the nationals of the origin state. The degree of

documentation required at borders is a good indicator of how open or closed a state’s borders

are vis-à-vis the citizens of another country (Boehmer and Peña 2008). States utilize visa

restrictions to categorize individuals before they are granted access to territory: those who do

not need a visa are regarded as risk-free by default and those who need a visa are required to

undergo closer inspection at consulates or embassies before being granted permission of entry

(Neumayer 2006). Data for visa restrictions uses Neumayer’s (2006) measure, coded from the

2004 version of the International Aviation Association’s Travel Manual (IATA ) (IATA 2004).

Utilized by the majority of airlines and travel bureaus, this manual provides authoritative

information on controls in place. Bilateral visa restrictions encompass 189 member states of the

26
 United Nations and 18 non-member political territories, totaling to 207 dyads, or 36,300

directed dyads.

Human Trafficking in Origin: Lack of reliable data has plagued researchers of organized

crime and human trafficking (Cho et al. 2011). Not only do countries differ immensely in their

data collection and reporting capabilities but the covert nature of trafficking makes it difficult

to rely on official state statistics. Furthermore, data is likely to be missing particularly in states

in which corruption of governmental officials is endemic, leading to gross underestimation of

trafficking (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003). With that in mind, I opt for indices of human trafficking

prevalence in the origin based on assessment by third party non-governmental organizations

or states. I employ three measures: two that measure how ubiquitous trafficking is as a

problem in origin states and third that captures states’ policy efforts to combat trafficking.

Global Patterns Citation Index: The main indicator I use comes from UNODC’s

“Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns Report” and associated appendices. The Global

Patterns citation index uses an ordinal score ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high)

representing how many times a state was cited as destination, transit, or source (origin)

country for human trafficking in international and domestic institutions and media. 14 Relying

on 113 different institutions, the database includes data for 161 countries; if a country was

cited at least once as destination, transit, or origin, it is covered in the database. In the main

aggregate analyses, I employ a composite score ranging from 0 (for countries that do not

14The range of numbers included in each citation category varies between destination, transit and origin countries.
The Global Patterns methodology employs a normal curve to determine the threshold for the ordinal scores 1 (very
low), 2 (low), 3 (medium), 4 (high), and 5 (very high).
27
 appear in Global Patterns as origin or transit) to 10 to tap into the degree to which the state

figures in relevant sources as origin or transit country. The use of this composite score rests on

the notion that destination states’ border policies reflect concerns over whether the source

country of migration is either an origin or transit country for trafficking. 15 Utilizing the

Citation Index in the main analysis makes conceptual sense insofar as the number of citations

by independent institutions and media showcases how endemic the problem of human

trafficking is in origin states.

Department of State Tier Score: As a secondary and complementary measure, I utilize the

U.S. Department of State’s Tier Scores for compliance with the TVPA, The Victims of Violence

and Trafficking Protection Act, adopted by the US in 2000. An oft-cited criticism of this

measure is that tier scores are biased to reflect the interests of the United States and serve as a

tool by the US to influence other states’ policies through “naming and shaming” (Simmons

and Lloyd 2010). Moreover, the scores lack transparency and it is unclear how the three

categories are determined. Although these criticisms put into question the reliability of the

scores as a measure of human trafficking in origin states, because my goal is not a cross-

country comparison of anti-trafficking efforts by origin states but rather the assessment of

policy responses by destination states, the tier rankings provide a viable alternative measure.

Cho, Dreher, and Neumayer Anti-Trafficking Policy Index: It is further plausible that

destination states take into account not only the threat of trafficking from transit and origin

countries but also the efforts these states make to ameliorate the problem. A recent working

15In other models I do not present, I employ a separate 0-5 score to just capture the status of the origin state as a
source of trafficking. The results obtained with this operationalization parallel those presented in the paper.
28
 database of anti-trafficking measures by Cho et al. provides an improvement on the State tier

rankings by differentiating between three types of policy instruments states utilize to limit

trafficking: prosecution of traffickers, prevention of trafficking, and protection of victims (Cho

et al. 2011). While the new index is an over-time measure, the version currently publicly

available is cross-sectional and reflects values for 2009. 16 The index encompasses 177 countries

and is a composite score for the three dimensions of policy, each of which takes on values 1-5,

where higher scores denote stronger efforts to counteract trafficking. A state that scores 15 on

the composite scale for example is making stellar efforts across all three dimensions. Although

the fact that the border policy measures are based on 2005 might be problematic, the Cho et al.

policy index serves as a third check of my hypotheses. We would expect border policies to be

more permissive toward origin states that have a better record of anti-trafficking policies

across all three dimensions.

Destination Liberal Regime: Previous research has argued that political climates defined

by freedoms act as a pull factor for migrants in destination countries (Hollifield 1992).

Furthermore, liberal regimes tend to favor fewer restrictions on migration because open

borders are consonant with liberal norms and beliefs (Lahav 2004; Messina and Lahav 2006;

Neumayer 2006). The variable comes from the Freedom House index assigning an ordinal

score (2 to 14) according to experts’ judgments restrictions on political and social freedoms in

the destination country (House 2004). Alternate models employ a dummy indicator from the

same source for whether the destination state’s regime may be characterized as liberal.

16The index is available at http://www.human-trafficking-research.org/. The empirical range is from 2-15 because the
countries with worst rankings receive a score of 1 in at least two dimensions of policy.
29
 Destination Tourism Revenues: Arguably, states that are major tourist destinations have

an incentive to shy away from visa restrictions; in these states, the domestic tourism industry

would be expected to lobby for fewer restrictions (Neumayer 2006). I control for this effect by

including a variable for the recipient’s international tourism receipts. This measure is

obtained from the World Bank and denotes expenditures by international inbound visitors as

a proportion of the value of the country’s exports of goods and services.

Origin GDP per capita: GDP per capita is included to control for economic conditions in

the origin that push individuals toward migration. Additionally, Neumayer (2006) illustrates

that less economically developed countries encounter a disproportionate number of

restrictions on travel from the developed world. This variable is expressed in thousands of US

Dollars per capita (logged) in purchasing power parity (PPP); data for this measure is drawn

from the Penn World Trade Tables.

Origin Domestic Instability: Migration scholarship has established negative social and

political conditions in sending states such as domestic violence and regime instability as push

factors for outward flows of migrants (Neumayer 2005). In order to measure domestic

violence, I utilize an ordinal measure of origin’s civil strife and unrest derived from the

International Peace Institute (Uppsala) conflict project.

Origin Regime Type: On the one hand, autocratic regimes are more likely to restrict exit

of their own citizens (Caporaso 2000). On the other hand, however, autocratic regimes are

more likely to create the conditions –such as repression of social and political freedoms--that

prompt migration out of source countries. It is also plausible to suggest that democracies are

30
less wary of migration from their democratic counterparts. To control for these factors, I

included the revised polity score from the Polity IV project (Marshall and Jaggers 2000). This

score takes on values from -10 denoting complete autocracies to 10 for full democracies.

Terrorism in Origin: More recent literature has underscored the importance of border

controls not just as instruments to combat illegal migration but to maximize states’ security

vis-à-vis threats from transnational terrorism (Adamson and Grossman 2004; Koslowski 2005).

As such, countries whose citizens have been involved in past incidents of transnational

terrorism are more likely to face tighter controls. To account for this possibility, I include a

variable that counts the number of global attacks perpetrated by origin country citizens

globally in the last decade. The measure was created from the ITERATE database for incidents

of transnational terrorism (Mickolus et al. 2007).

Dyadic Trade: We might expect states’ border policies to embody concerns over the

deleterious effects of tight migration and border controls on economic flows (Neumayer 2006,

2009). To the extent that destination states anticipate that stringent policies would hamper

trade flows, they are likely to pursue more liberal policies vis-à-vis trade partners. To control

for this possibility, I include a measure for trade in the dyad. This variable measures the value

of bilateral trade –imports and exports-- for the recipient country, divided by the total trade

value of the recipient country; this measure might also be seen as tapping the salience of

dyadic trade for the recipient and comes from Rose’s measure of bilateral trade (Rose 2005).

The measure is averaged over the values from 1990 to 1996 to capture established trade ties in

the dyad.

31
 Dyadic Proximity: Analogous to the role that distance plays as a facilitator or obstacle to

economic flows in the gravity model of trade, proximity between the origin and destination

state may influence migration flows (Leblang et al. 2009). With that in mind, alternate models

employ different indicators: the logged distance between capitals measure for the dyad, a

dummy for whether the origin and destination are in the same region, and a 5-point measure

of contiguity, denoting increasing distance, from the Direct Contiguity database. The

indicators for distance between capitals and the regional tie dummy come from Gledistsch’s

Armed Conflict Database and from the World Bank’s categories for regions, respectively

(Strand et al. 2004; WDI 2008).

Dyadic Cultural Tie: Finally, it is plausible to suggest that states enact more permissive

border and migration control policies with respect to the nationals of countries with which

they enjoy cultural or historical ties (Neumayer 2006). To account for this possibility, I employ

two dichotomous variables: a dummy for the existence of past colonial ties in the dyad, and a

dummy for shared civilization. The dummy for colonial links is coded 1 if the countries in the

dyad were colonized by the same country in the past (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Neumayer

2006). The latter indicator uses Henderson and Tucker’s revised categories for Huntington’s

classification of civilizations and is coded 1 if the origin and destination state belong to the

same category (Henderson and Tucker 2001).

Human Trafficking Equation

The human trafficking equation models the prevalence of human trafficking in origin

as a function of the destination’s border policies against the origin’s citizens and a number of

32
origin country macroeconomic, social, and political characteristics as control variables. In the

equation below the subscripts A and B refer to destination (host) and origin (source) states

respectively.

ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵

= 𝛽20 + 𝛾21 (𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑦𝐴 ) + 𝛽21 (𝐺𝑁𝐼𝑝𝑐𝐵 ) + 𝛽22 (𝑢𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝐵 )

+ 𝛽23 (𝑙𝑜𝑔𝐺𝐷𝑃𝐵 ) + 𝛽24 (𝐺𝑖𝑛𝑖𝐵 ) + 𝛽25 (𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦2𝐵 ) + 𝛽26 (𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚𝐵 )

+ 𝛽27 (𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑢𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝐵 ) + 𝛽28 (𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐵 ) + 𝛽29 (𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝐵 )

+ 𝛽210 �𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛′ 𝑠 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠𝐵 � + 𝛽211 (𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑦 𝑑𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑦𝐵 ) + 𝜀1

Gross National Income Per Capita (GNIpc): GNI per capita of the origin state is included

to account for economic contextual factors that influence the dominance of organized crime in

the origin. Scholars contend that economic poverty at the individual level might not only act

as a push factor for migration out of origin states but also drive the poor to rely on crime

networks (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003). Data for this measure is drawn from World Development

Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank and is expressed in thousands of dollars of purchasing

power parity (PPP).

Unemployment: Parallel reasoning suggests that unemployment functions as a push

factor for out-migration as well as inducing demand for crime networks to gain access to the

economically developed world (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003; Friebel and Guriev 2006). Data for

this variable also comes from the WDI database and reflects total unemployment as

percentage of total labor force.

33
 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) logged: Organized crime takes advantage of poor

economic conditions in a country. Poverty, similar to unemployment and economic

inequality, creates and sustains a potential supply of illegal labor for criminal networks to take

advantage of (Bales 2005). To account for this effect, the logged GDP figures from the WDI

database are included; the mean for the last decade is employed.

GINI Coefficient for Origin: Plausibly, economic inequality is among the list of

socioeconomic factors in origin countries that render their populations exploitable by

organized crime networks (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003; Feingold 2005). To capture this effect,

models include the GINI coefficient for inequality, where 0 denotes full equality and 1 full

inequality. Data for this measure was obtained from the World Income Inequality Database

and averaged over the last decade.

Regime Type for Origin: The Polity IV score is employed to account for the notion that

regime type might directly influence the predominance of human trafficking in origin

countries. The lack of direct representation in autocratic systems may foster corruption, which

in turn breeds criminal activity (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003). To the extent that organized crime

impinges on nepotism and patronage, it should be inversely related to the democracy score.

Origin’s Freedom Score: A similar reasoning for the inclusion of regime type exists to the

extent that repression of political freedoms entails spread of corruption and thereby

encourages illicit activity outside of the realm of legitimate economic activity. Curtailment of

social and political freedoms might also draw individuals to criminal networks as potential

34
recruits, strengthening the hand of organized crime in these states (Shelley 1999). The freedom

score comes from the Freedom House index (Freedom House 2004).

Corruption in Origin: Scholars surmise that corruption is directly related to human

trafficking in leading to state capture and penetration of the governmental apparatus by

criminal networks (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003). Moreover, corruption hinders enforcement of

policies designed to counter criminal activity, in particular by making it difficult to prosecute

and penalize traffickers (Bartilow 2010; Cho et al. 2011).

Organized Crime in Origin: While the focus of this paper is on human trafficking as a

form of organized crime, scholars have articulated that trafficking tends to gain a foothold in

societies characterized by the pervasiveness of organized crime in general. To control for this

effect, I use an indicator from the World Economic Forum that ranges from 1 to 7 (WEF 2010).

The original measure is based on executive surveys’ assessment of costs imposed by organized

crime on business and ranges from worst to best. The indicator in the models is reversed, for

ease of interpretation, to range from -7 for best (least cost to business) to -1 for worst (most

cost to business).

Violent Crime in Origin: Domestic violent crime is purported to be positively correlated

with the functioning of transborder criminal networks (Apap et al. 2002). Furthermore,

pervasive violent crime might be an indicator of a faulty judicial system or more broadly,

weak state capacity (Buscaglia and Dijk 2003). This measure uses data from the Global Peace

Index (GPI) and varies from 1 to 5, representing a higher predominance of criminal activity in

the origin (GPI 2005).

35
 Women’s Rights in Origin: Bartilow (2010) argues that women’s socioeconomic rights are

instrumental to easing the problem of human trafficking. Societies defined by gender equality

are less conducive to the growth of trafficking networks. To control for this effect, I include

measure for women’s economic and social rights from the Cingranelli-Richards Index; the

variable runs from 0 to 4 to indicate more widespread rights for women in origin states

(Cingranelli and Richards 2008). The measure I use is the minimum score for the last decade to

capture the weakest-link logic that preponderance of human trafficking in societies is likely to

reflect the worst socioeconomic conditions.

Origin Treaty Signature: Lastly, I include an indicator for whether the origin state is a

signatory to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) or

its major two protocols: The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,

Especially Women and Children and The Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by

Land, Sea and Air. Scholars have proposed treaty membership as an important instrument

through which human trafficking may be mitigated. 17 Signature of the TOC also shows that a

state takes the issue seriously and is engaged in international efforts to curb the problem

(Avdeyeva forthcoming; Cho et al. 2011; Simmons and Lloyd 2010). Logically, we might

expect human trafficking to be less widespread in signatory origin states. The variable takes

on the value of 1 if the origin has signed the TOC or its Protocols: because the two protocols

supplement the TOC, a state is more likely to have signed the TOC before becoming a

17I acknowledge that treaty ratification rather than signature is a stronger indication that the state is engaged in
international efforts to combat trafficking in carrying a higher level of legal obligation. However, given that the focus
of this paper is not on treaty compliance, I rely on becoming a signatory to the TOC as a more inclusive measure of
efforts against trafficking on the part of the origin country.
36
 signatory to the protocols (UNODC 2004). The list of signatory states comes from the Global

Patterns report on worldwide human trafficking (UNODC 2009).

Methodology

The theoretical framework points to reciprocity between human trafficking in origin

countries and border policies enacted by destination states. This calls for a model that directly

models the simultaneous determination of border policies and trafficking. Given endogeneity,

a single equation model such as ordinary least squares (OLS) would result in bias even in the

absence of omitted variables (Baum et al. 2003). I model the relationship using an

instrumental variables approach designed for two equation systems in which one dependent

variable in the system is dichotomous and the other is continuous (Hegre et al. 2010; Keshk et

al. 2004; Maddala 1983). In the models presented here, border policy variables are

dichotomous whereas the indicators for trafficking are considered to be continuous. 18

For a system of simultaneous equations to be identified, the exclusion principle must

hold: at least one variable must be found for each equation that affects the dependent variable

that is excluded from the other equation (Baum et al. 2003; Maddala 1998). Moreover, the

instruments should affect the other dependent variable only through their impact on the

dependent variable of the equation in which they are included. For the border policy

equation, all the variables except for the origin’s Polity IV score and GNI per capita of the

origin state serve as instruments as they are excluded from the human trafficking equation.

For the trafficking equation, a useful approach is to include as instruments variables that

18I consider ordinal variables with more than 5 categories to be continuous. The only indicator that fails to satisfy this
rule is the origin country’s tier rankings by the State department.
37
 pertain to social, political, and economic conditions in the origin that affect trafficking

prevalence but do not directly influence border policies. Given that all the right hand side

variables in the trafficking equation other than the regime type and GNI per capita are

excluded from the border policy equation, the identification condition for instrumental

variables (IV) estimation is fulfilled.

Results

Table 1 displays the results for the simultaneous equation model for border policy and

human trafficking.

--Table 1 about here--

The first and second columns show the probit results for visa restrictions as the

dependent variable; corrected IV standard errors are given in parentheses in the next column.

The third and fourth columns portray the OLS results with human trafficking as the

dependent variable with corrected standard errors. 19 As expected by hypothesis 1, the

instrument for trafficking in the first column is significant and positive. This finding

demonstrates that destination states react to the threat of trafficking in origin states by

imposing restrictions on access to their territories. The other explanatory variables included in

19Although the application of the Maddala procedure in Stata—cdsimeq-- does not permit a test of the
appropriateness of simultaneous equations, I estimated the same model through ivreg. The endogeneity test,
equivalent to a Hausman test of instrumental variables estimation against OLS, was significant at the 0.000 level,
showing that simultaneous equation modeling is warranted. More specifically, the significant statistic shows that
OLS would be inconsistent. Similarly, the tests for overidentifying restrictions –such as the Sargan and J tests--are
not available with the Maddala procedure. I estimated the equations separately, through ivreg2 and ivprobit, to
confirm the suitability of instruments; in other words that instruments are not correlated with the error term in each
equation.
38
the border equation behave as expected and are significant at the 0.000 level, with the

exception of terrorism by citizens of the origin and shared colonial history. In accordance with

literature, states are more likely to impose visas on citizens from poor and unstable countries,

as illustrated by the negative sign on origin’s GNI per capita and the positive sign on domestic

instability. They are less likely to restrict access from countries with democratic governments,

as indicated by the negative sign on the Polity score for the origin state. Destination state

characteristics also have the proposed effects: liberal states and states that enjoy higher levels

of tourism revenue are less likely to impose restrictions. Dyadic controls also behave in line

with intuition: proximity and trade ties make for more liberal border policies.

Turning now to human trafficking equation, we note that the coefficient on the

instrument for visa restrictions is positive. This corroborates the notion of a virtuous cycle:

human trafficking is endogenous to border controls but visa restrictions dampen the

prevalence of trafficking in origin states. The coefficients for controls for women’s economic

rights, organized crime and corruption in the origin, and international cooperation emerge as

expected. Although marginally significant, accession to the TOC and Protocols is negatively

associated with the threat of trafficking. Higher scores for women’s rights, as the literature

suggests, decrease the prevalence of trafficking. Higher costs of organized crime on business

and the corruption perception index also behave as expected and are positively correlated

with the prevalence of trafficking.

It is worth saying a few remarks on some of the controls in the human trafficking

equation that seem to go against intuition. Democracy emerges as positive and significant. It

39
is plausible to argue that this finding is attributable to the way that human trafficking is

measured in this model: the score hinges on visibility of trafficking in media, and domestic

and international resources. Thus, it is possible to suggest that due to higher levels of

transparency, trafficking has a higher chance of being reported in democratic origin states.

Controls for the macroeconomic context, GNI per capita and the GINI coefficient are also

contrary to expectations: although the former has a substantially small positive impact, the

positive coefficient seems to suggest that greater per capita income enhances trafficking

potential. The negative sign on the GINI indicates that greater inequality dampens rather than

increases trafficking. We might imagine that these effects point to an opportunity logic

whereby a minimal level of per capita income is necessary for both demand and supply for

trafficking to exist. A final surprising result concerns the negative coefficient on violence in the

origin country. Although caution is necessary in drawing these conclusions, it is imaginable

that violence in the origin restricts the opportunity for organized crime to gain a foothold. To

the degree that human trafficking mimics legitimate business operations, violence and

individual poverty would limit or drive out human trafficking networks.

Next, I present the same model using U.S. Department of State tier rankings to model

human trafficking. The first two columns give the border policy equation and the final two

columns portray the human trafficking equation.

--Table 2 about here--

40
 The results from Table 2 parallel those obtained using the Global Patterns indicator for

human trafficking in the origin country. As can be seen in the first column, the coefficient for

the tier score for the origin is positive and highly significant, indicating that consistent with

Hypothesis 1, a poor record of human trafficking in the origin results in restrictions on

migration by the destination state. Caution is warranted in interpreting this result, however,

given the criticisms that the tier rankings are biased by US policy interests. Thus, it is possible

that the visa restrictions in place are partially employed as a tool to induce policy change in

origins deemed to have poor compliance with TVPA. 20 Nevertheless, this dynamic might not

necessarily underpin the restrictions placed by all recipients, even if present in the motives of

states whose interests align with the US.

The controls in the border equation behave in accordance with expectations from the

literature on migration and parallel the findings shown in Table 1. Except for GNI per capita

and colonial link all right hand side variables in the border equation are statistically

significant. Thus, recipient states that rely more heavily on tourism revenues and enjoy a

liberal regime are less likely to impose visa controls. Instability in the origin, an autocratic

regime, and involvement in global terrorism increase the probability of facing visa restrictions,

as illustrated by the positive coefficient on global terrorism, domestic instability, and the

negative coefficient on democracy.

Turning our attention to the human trafficking equation, we observe that consistent

with Hypothesis 2, the imposition of visa controls has a negative impact on the prevalence of

20 See Meyers (2004) for a discussion of how migration policy may be used as a foreign policy tool through issue-
linkages.
41
human trafficking in the origin state. Reevaluating the finding in terms of what the indicator

for trafficking is measuring, it is possible to suggest that tighter controls on migration result in

improvements in efforts to counter human trafficking, as defined by compliance with TVPA.

Shifting attention to the controls, we see that international cooperation to combat human

trafficking and women’s economic rights decrease the predominance of trafficking in the

origin, as demonstrated by the negative sign on treaty signature and women’s economic

rights. In contrast to the findings in Table 1, this time, GDP per capita and inequality are in

line with expectations: higher personal income and a more equal distribution of societal

wealth decrease the prevalence of human trafficking. The effects of socioeconomic conditions,

however, paint a more puzzling picture. Organized crime and corruption in the origin are

both negatively associated with human trafficking. Recalling that both indicators are

measured as costs to economic transactions, it is possible to surmise that to the degree that

human trafficking operates in ways similar to legitimate business, crime and corruption may

detract from its predominance.

The results with the Global Patterns Citation Index and the State Tier Scores paint a

picture of a virtuous circle: the presence of visa restrictions weakens the hold that trafficking

has in countries of origin. Unpacking this finding further, we might imagine that the negative

impact of visa controls on human trafficking dominance may be driven by two mechanisms.

First, the existence of visa controls circumscribes the opportunities available for trafficking

networks to operate by raising the costs of transporting migrants into destination states.

However, although visas raise the transaction costs of operation for trafficking networks,

42
traffickers may find alternate ways of entry into destination states’ territories. To the extent

that such alternate routes are at the disposal of traffickers, we should expect an insignificant or

weak effect from the imposition of visas. A second mechanism, however, may be at play. The

imposition of visas induces destination states to undertake domestic policy changes designed

to counter human trafficking. In order to assess this second mechanism, I use the Cho et al. 3-

Point Policy Index to model the interrelationship between border policy and trafficking (Cho

et al. 2011). Table 3 presents the results with the 3-P Policy Index.

---Table 3 about here---

To reiterate, the 3-P Policy Index runs from 1 to 15 and assigns a higher score across all

three dimensions of anti-trafficking policy: prevention, prosecution, and protection. Keeping

this in mind, Hypothesis 1 would predict that a better record of anti-trafficking in the origin

decreases the propensity of recipient states to impose border controls. This expectation is

borne out by the significant and negative coefficient on the instrumented policy index in the

border policy equation. This finding emphasizes that destination states’ policies not only

embody concerns over the predominance of trafficking in the origin but also factor in the

policy measures enacted by origin country governments to monitor trafficking. The behavior

of the right hand side variables in the border policy equation are in accordance with the

findings depicted in Tables 1 and 2. Recipient’s liberal regime status, tourism revenues,

regional and cultural ties detract from the probability that visa restrictions will be in place.

Conversely, poverty, instability in the origin, and autocracy increase the probability of

encountering visas.

43
 Taking a look at the trafficking equation, we observe that importantly, visa restrictions

lead to an improvement on the 3-P policy index: the coefficient on the instrument for visa

controls is significant and positive. This finding reaffirms the contention that border controls

compel origin countries plagued by trafficking to craft policies to minimize the problem. The

trafficking equation also controls for the strength of trafficking—by including the Global

Patterns Citation score as a right hand side variable— in the origin in order to account for the

possibility that policy improvements are driven by concerns over the strength of trafficking

and not necessarily by external factors. The negative sign on trafficking prevalence indicates

that the dominance of human trafficking in the origin is negatively associated with a good

rating on the 3-P Index. Most of the control variables in the human trafficking equation are

significant and in the expected direction. Democracy and liberalism are positively associated

with a good record on the anti-trafficking index, as is being a signatory to the TOC. Similarly,

better economic health—in terms of higher GNI per capita and logged GDP for the origin—is

associated with a higher score on the anti-trafficking index while conversely poor economic

conditions—in terms of higher inequality and unemployment—produce a lower score on the

index. The corruption perception index emerges as positive, a finding that is potentially

driven by a dynamic similar to the effect of trafficking prevalence: states facing higher

corruption and trafficking are more likely to make efforts to counter trafficking.

Finally, to allow comparison across models presented in Tables 1 through 3, Table 4

gives the marginal effects for the estimated equations, with all explanatory variables set to

their respective means. The models are presented in the order in which they were discussed in

44
the empirical section, as illustrated by the first column in the table. Table 4 displays the

marginal effect of trafficking in origin country on visa policies and visa policy on trafficking

prevalence, for each model estimated. The final two columns give the lower and upper bounds

of the 95 % confidence interval (C.I.) around the marginal effect.

---Table 4 About Here—

Table 4 informs us of a similar pattern across all models: consistent with the

simultaneous equations presented, the instantaneous change of border policy when trafficking

increases is positive, demonstrating once again that the probability of visa restrictions

increases with trafficking prevalence in the origin. The marginal effect of visa restrictions on

trafficking prevalence is negative, conforming to the expectations generated by the virtuous-

cycle proposition. Second, the marginal impact of trafficking on visa policies is weakest for

the Global Patterns Citations Index and strongest for the 3-P policy score. In the latter case,

the negative coefficient indicates that a better record of anti-trafficking in the origin produces a

negative instantaneous change in the propensity to impose visa restrictions on the part of the

destination country. Third, when the marginal effects for visa restrictions on trafficking in the

origin are taken into account, the weakest effect is observed for the 3-P policy index. Finally,

all the effects estimated are highly statistically significant.

Conclusion

In this paper, I used simultaneous equation modeling techniques to study the

relationship between border policies and human trafficking. I argued that border policies of

destination states and human trafficking prevalence in origin states are characterized by a

45
reciprocal relationship. The models presented in this paper found evidence in favor of the

virtuous cycle thesis. I contended that the beneficial effect of visa restrictions whereby border

controls reduce human trafficking in origin states may occur through two mechanisms. First,

visa controls constrain the choices available to human traffickers by raising the costs of

territorial access to destination states. Second, visa controls prompt policy improvements in

origin states defined by anti-trafficking measures.

The paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship on human trafficking, and

more generally to studies of organized crime in world politics. It is, to my knowledge, one of

the first attempts to systematically analyze states’ responses to human trafficking. The paper

also engages the debate in security studies on the effectiveness of border and migration

control measures on combating organized crime. On one side of the debate, pundits argue

that states’ hands are tied in coping with organized crime networks because tighter controls

embolden traffickers and smugglers by increasing demand for clandestine entry into states’

territories. On the other end, scholars suggest that more stringent controls can act as a

deterrent for traffickers by increasing the costs of operation and the likelihood that traffickers

will be caught and prosecuted.

While the results presented in this paper rule in favor of the optimistic thesis, a few

remarks are in order before drawing such a conclusion. For one, two of the main indicators

for human trafficking –the Global Patterns Citation Score and the US Department of State Tier

Ranking—hinge on visibility of organized crime. In the former, the citation is based on the

visibility of trafficking in domestic and international resources as well as media. In the latter

46
case, the ranking is based on a third-party (subjective) assessment of compliance with TVPA.

First, to the degree that both scores would be affected by how visible human trafficking is in

the origin, we might conjecture that tight border controls serve to drive trafficking further

underground, rather than directly undercutting the process. Second, the paper focuses on visa

policies as an instrument of border and migration control. Although visas are undeniably an

important (upstream) measure against undesirable entrants and a sizeable portion of

trafficking relies on entry with forged documentation, human traffickers rely on alternate

methods to gain cross borders. In other words, visas may raise the costs of travel for

traffickers but push them toward more clandestine means of entry. Furthermore, the cross-

sectional nature of the analysis undertaken in this paper prohibits a test of the extent to which

the virtuous-cycle effect is time sensitive. It is conceivable to imagine, for instance, that the

long-term effects of stringent effects are defined by a vicious cycle. Finally, while the results

show that visa controls diminish the prevalence of human trafficking, they are agnostic to how

these controls influence the demand for trafficking in origin states.

Shedding light on this debate is important from a broader theoretical perspective in the

sense that the efficacy of states’ policy responses vis-à-vis non-state actors demonstrates that

sovereignty is not as much at peril as globalization scholars would have us believe. Instead,

states are able to modify the security environment they face through careful policy responses.

47
 TABLES

Table 1: Simultaneous Equations Estimation of Visa Restrictions and Human

Trafficking (With Global Patterns Indicator for Human Trafficking)
Border Policy Equation Human Trafficking Equation

Coefficient SE Coefficient SE
Visa Restriction (instrument) -0.07* (0.03071)
Human trafficking (instrument) 0.07*** (0.01027)
Origin unemployment 0.00 (0.00351)
Origin Gini -0.13*** (0.00250)
Origin GDP (logged) 0.05*** (0.01318)
Origin freedom 0.15*** (0.01735)
Origin women's econ rights -1.06*** (0.05122)
Origin domestic violence -0.22*** (0.02775)
Origin organized crime 0.76*** (0.02886)
Origin corruption 0.07*** (0.01879)
TOC dummy -0.09+ (0.04523)
Origin GNI per capita 0.00*** (0.00000) 0.00*** (0.00000)
Origin Polity score -0.05*** (0.00404) 0.14*** (0.01039)

Destination liberalism dummy -0.91*** (0.02839)

Destination tourism revenue -0.01*** (0.00089)
Origin domestic instability 0.19*** (0.02364)
Bilateral trade -0.03*** (0.00382)
Origin transnational terror 0.00 (0.00034)
Same region dummy -0.69*** (0.03903)
Colonial link dummy 0.20 (0.14602)
Constant 1.45*** (0.06307) 12.62*** (0.44717)
N 11,558 11,558

Two tailed tests: + p <= 0.10, * p <=0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p < 0.001
Corrected standard errors from Maddala (1983) in parentheses.

48
 Table 2: Simultaneous Estimation of Border Policy and Human Trafficking: State
Tier Rankings
Border Policy Equation Trafficking Equation
Coefficient Std. Err. Coefficient Std. Err.

Tier score (instrument) 0.52*** (0.0441)

Visa restriction (instrument) -0.05*** (0.0069)
Destination liberalism
dummy -0.92*** (0.0289)
Destination tourism
revenue -0.01*** (0.0009)
Origin domestic instability 0.22*** (0.0242)
Bilateral Trade -0.01** (0.0039)
Origin transnational terror 0.01** (0.0003)
Same region dummy -0.79*** (0.0403)
Colonial link dummy 0.14 (0.1483)
Origin GNI per capita 0.00+ (0.0000) 0.00 (0.0000)
Origin Polity score -0.04*** (0.0041) 0.02*** (0.0023)

Unemployment origin 0.01 (0.0008)

Gini origin 0.01*** (0.0006)
GDP (logged) origin -0.04*** (0.0030)
Origin Freedom 0.05*** (0.0039)
Women's Econ Rights -0.14*** (0.0115)
Origin Domestic Violence 0.09*** (0.0062)
Origin Organized Crime -0.15*** (0.0065)
Origin Corruption -0.14*** (0.0042)
TOC Dummy -0.07*** (0.0102)
Constant 0.86*** (0.1082) 2.14*** (0.1010)
N 11,389 11,389

Two tailed tests: + p <= 0.10, * p <=0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p < 0.001
Corrected standard errors from Maddala (1983) in parentheses.

49
 Table 3: Simultaneous Model of Border Policy and Human Trafficking from the
Policy Perspective (3-P Policy Index)

Border Policy Equation Trafficking Equation

Coefficient S.E. Coefficient S.E.

Policy index (instrument) -0.10*** (0.0117)

Visa restriction
(instrument) 0.06** (0.0191)
Destination liberalism
dummy -0.84*** (0.0278)
Destination tourism
revenue -0.01*** (0.0009)
Origin domestic instability 0.20*** (0.0224)
Bilateral trade -0.02*** (0.0036)
Origin terrorism 0.00* (0.0003)
Regional link -0.35*** (0.0425)
Common civilization -0.91*** (0.0443)
Origin Polity -0.03*** (0.0045) -0.01*** (0.0067)
Origin GNI per capita 0.00 (0.0000) 0.00*** (0.0000)
Origin trafficking -0.12*** (0.0062)
Origin organized crime -0.90*** (0.0201)
Origin unemployment -0.04*** (0.0023)
Origin GINI -0.06*** (0.0019)
Origin domestic violence 0.09*** (0.0190)
Origin freedom score -0.35*** (0.0116)
TOC Signature 0.45*** (0.0305)
Origin GDP (logged) 0.44*** (0.0084)
Origin corruption index 0.47*** (0.0124)
Constant 2.72*** (0.1156) 7.72*** (0.2770)
N 11898.00 11898.00
Two tailed tests: + p <= 0.10, * p <=0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p < 0.001
Corrected standard errors from Maddala (1983) in parentheses.

50
Table 4: Marginal Effects for Models I –III

Indicator Equation Marginal 95% C.I.

effect Lower Upper
Global Patterns Impact of trafficking 0.203*** 0.160 0.246
Citation Index on visa policy (0.0218)
(Table I)
Impact of visa policy -0.034*** -0.041 -0.026
on trafficking in origin (0.0040)

Department of State Impact of trafficking 0.413*** 0.343 0.483

Tier Rankings on visa policy (0.0356)
(Table II)
Impact of visa policy -0.016*** -0.021 -0.011
on trafficking in origin (0.0024)

Cho et al. 3-P Index Impact of trafficking -0.542*** -0.666 -0.418

(Table III) on visa policy (0.0632)

Impact of visa policy 0.003** 0.001 0.005

on trafficking in origin (0.0010)

+ p <= 0.10, * p <=0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p < 0.001

Standard Errors in parentheses underneath estimated marginal effects

51
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