Today we are talking with Philip Gounev (co-edited with Vincenzo Ruggiero) about his new book Corruption and Organized Crime in Europe (Taylor and Francis, 2012). He is the co-author of this book with Vincenzo Ruggiero, and they have a number of people who have made contributions to individual chapters. This is a great combination of two researcher’s skills. Prof Ruggiero is a major theorist on the topic of organized crime and Philip is a leading researcher into corruption in Europe.

The issue of corruption is always ‘timely’. It may be that in a global financial crisis the consequences of corrupt practices have even greater impact. The authors focus on the connection between corruption and organized crime, especially how these two concepts interact in a market place. Organized criminals need security to ensure stable operations, and the public officials can provide that security through corrupt practices. I do a great deal of research into corruption and organized crime but I still learnt an enormous amount from this book. Any researchers in this area from the English speaking world will benefit from reading this book as about half of their references come from non-English speaking sources; thus this is an opportunity to see data and theories that you otherwise would not have the chance to read in English. I really enjoyed both reading this book and talking with Philip. I hope you enjoy the interview.

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