Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Economia e Statistica "Cognetti de Martiis"

The course is intended to concur to the learning project of the Master Degree in Economics of the Environment, Culture and Territory and to offer students specific competences on the analysis of the worlwide spreading of environmental crimes as a byproduct of globalization processes, which means also to assume that these crimes respond to market dynamics.

The course posits a model of analysis based on an interdisciplinary and multilevel methodology, mainly intended to better define the "grey zone", the network of relationships between members of the (legal) economic and political system and organized crime groups, acting both at the local and transnational level.

The course is intended to offer students the opportunity to develop the following expertise:

Knowledge and comprehension capability

- to analyse the evolution of environmental crimes, in relation to the evolution of globalization processes;

- to learn how to apply an interdisciplinary and multilevel model of analysis to the study of environmental crimes;

Free judgement

- to acquire the capability to autonomously reproduce this model in the specific topics they will be asked to research and debate during the course;

Communication skills

- to acquire the capability to make a presentation on a chosen item and discuss it with the colleagues and the professor.

The aim of the course is to reconsider the complex role of environmental crimes in the capitalist economy, which means to consider both the offer and the demand sides of this specific market of illegal services.

The course will develop, in particular, the following topics, both in a theoretical and empirical way, through an in-depth analysis of specific case studies:

- the meaning and function of environcide in global capitalism;

- evolution and structuring of organized crime groups in historical and comparative perspective;

- the involvement of organized crime in conflicts over natural scarce or declining resources (from extraction processes to possession);

- the involvement of organized crime in the everyday environmental crimes at the urban level (from the speculative and systematic destruction of natural habitat to toxic waste disposal).

The course will be introduced by some preliminary lessons, and followed by guided debates, with the support of specific tutorials (articles, and web sources). 

Attending students are required to participate on a regular basis.

Students who attend the course will be asked to write a paper (2000 words) that, in a draft version, will be debated in class, and then delivered in its final version at the end of the course.The purpose of the paper is to assess critical thinking and writing skills of the student.

A supplementary oral exam will be possible for students who want to improve the assessment of the written exam.

The participation to the guided debates will contribute to the final assessment.

Students who do not attend the course will have to pass an oral exam based on the textbooks in the bibliography, intended also to test their critical thinking and oral communication skills.

International and Erasmus students may prepare for examinations and take them in English.

Support activities are not expected. 

For students who do not attend the course, the oral exam will be based on the previous two books, and on:

D. Chakrabarty, La sfida del cambiamento climatico. Globalizzazione e Antropocene, ombre corte, Verona 2021.

Students with particular needs are invited to contact the professor before the course's start.