Political Responses to Crime: Explaining Variance in Global Crime Governance

International regulations against crime have flourished in recent years, yet comparative perspectives on these efforts remain rare. Based on a recently finished research project, this paper compares global anti-corruption efforts, the global fight against money laundering and anti-human trafficking regulations, inquiring why the institutional design of these political efforts is strikingly different. Based on an institutionalist framework, this variance is explained by the strength of the United States and other proponents in the international negotiations, and the different intrinsic characteristics of anti-crime norms. As a consequence, global crime governance is strongly institutionalized and most elaborated in fields where civil society engagement has been low – money laundering – while it is weakest in the publicly discussed case of human trafficking. Anti-corruption efforts are take place in the middle of these extremes.