Illegalisms of the Powerful in Argentina’s Energy Sector: Selectivity, Social Harm and Accumulation by Dispossession

Abstract

This article examines how the illegalisms of the powerful, perpetrated by financial actors in the Global North, inflict significant social harm on peripheral economies operating with legal and social impunity. This dynamic is investigated through a qualitative case study focusing on the litigation financed by the Burford Capital fund against Argentina for the expropriation of the oil company YPF SA, as well as through the analysis of a documentary corpus composed mainly of the fund’s own annual reports. It is argued that these actors transform legal systems into a technology of power to execute a contemporary form of accumulation by dispossession, thereby shaping a (neo)colonial geopolitics of impunity. The findings reveal the specific mechanisms of this dispossession: “litigation investment” is characterised by its inherent asymmetrical nature, due to low risk and extraordinary profit. Furthermore, the “creation of secondary markets” for legal claims enables funds to secure profits and reduce their exposure to risk even before a final judgment is made. The article’s primary contribution to the field of critical criminology is twofold. First, it offers a strategic theoretical hybridisation of Foucauldian analytics, Latin American critical criminology and zemiology to analyse harms that are not classified as crimes according to criminal law. Second, by shifting the focus from the concept of “crime” to that of “illegalism” and “social harm,” the work provides empirical content to concepts such as “accumulation by dispossession” and strengthens a criminological perspective from the Global South.