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Writing economic crimes into being: The case of swindling

Paulsson, Alexander LU ; Rahm, Henrik LU ; Sandell, Niklas LU and Svensson, Peter LU (2025) In Journal of Economic Criminology 10.
Abstract
Economic crimes are – often – abstract crimes. Even for a somewhat well-trained accounting expert, these crimes are ambiguous, hard to detect and difficult to interpret. The abstract character of economic crimes is a problem in need of a solution. The abstractness needs to be reduced in order to make the court case judicially manageable, i.e. possible to work with during the process of trial and legitimise to the public. In this paper we argue that such a reduction of abstractness is accomplished in the text-work undertaken by the courts, i.e. in their writing of the reasoning behind the verdict. Based upon detailed analyses of court reasonings, and drawing upon linguistic theory, we show how the abstract character of a specific type of... (More)
Economic crimes are – often – abstract crimes. Even for a somewhat well-trained accounting expert, these crimes are ambiguous, hard to detect and difficult to interpret. The abstract character of economic crimes is a problem in need of a solution. The abstractness needs to be reduced in order to make the court case judicially manageable, i.e. possible to work with during the process of trial and legitimise to the public. In this paper we argue that such a reduction of abstractness is accomplished in the text-work undertaken by the courts, i.e. in their writing of the reasoning behind the verdict. Based upon detailed analyses of court reasonings, and drawing upon linguistic theory, we show how the abstract character of a specific type of economic crime, that of swindling, is turned into illusions of concreteness. These illusions are accomplished by means of a set of rhetorical manoeuvres that reduce the uncertainty of both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the alleged crime. The paper offers a novel perspective on how economic crimes come into being, not only in terms of the misdeed done by individuals and corporations, but also through the textwork undertaken in the court system. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Economic Criminology
volume
10
article number
100195
publisher
Elsevier
ISSN
2949-7914
DOI
10.1016/j.jeconc.2025.100195
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
62e00415-c7d5-4192-a2c6-8c1c6f333a6f
date added to LUP
2025-10-07 13:19:52
date last changed
2025-10-08 10:33:37
@article{62e00415-c7d5-4192-a2c6-8c1c6f333a6f,
  abstract     = {{Economic crimes are – often – abstract crimes. Even for a somewhat well-trained accounting expert, these crimes are ambiguous, hard to detect and difficult to interpret. The abstract character of economic crimes is a problem in need of a solution. The abstractness needs to be reduced in order to make the court case judicially manageable, i.e. possible to work with during the process of trial and legitimise to the public. In this paper we argue that such a reduction of abstractness is accomplished in the text-work undertaken by the courts, i.e. in their writing of the reasoning behind the verdict. Based upon detailed analyses of court reasonings, and drawing upon linguistic theory, we show how the abstract character of a specific type of economic crime, that of swindling, is turned into illusions of concreteness. These illusions are accomplished by means of a set of rhetorical manoeuvres that reduce the uncertainty of both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the alleged crime. The paper offers a novel perspective on how economic crimes come into being, not only in terms of the misdeed done by individuals and corporations, but also through the textwork undertaken in the court system.}},
  author       = {{Paulsson, Alexander and Rahm, Henrik and Sandell, Niklas and Svensson, Peter}},
  issn         = {{2949-7914}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Journal of Economic Criminology}},
  title        = {{Writing economic crimes into being: The case of swindling}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconc.2025.100195}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.jeconc.2025.100195}},
  volume       = {{10}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}