The Politics Of Drug Violence

Over the last few decades, drug trafficking organizations in Latin America became infamous for their shocking public crimes, from narcoterrorist assaults on the Colombian political system in the 1980s to the more recent wave of beheadings in Mexico. However, while these highly visible forms of public violence dominate headlines, they are neither the most common form of drug violence nor simply the result of brutality. Rather, they stem from structural conditions that vary from country to country and from era to era. In The Politics of Drug Violence, Angelica Durán-Martínez shows how variation in drug violence results from the complex relationship between state power and criminal competition. Drawing on remarkably extensive fieldwork, this book compares five cities that have been home to major trafficking organizations for the past four decades: Cali and Medellín in Colombia, and Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, and Tijuana in Mexico. She shows that violence escalates when trafficking organizations compete and the state security apparatus is fragmented. However, when the criminal market is monopolized and the state security apparatus cohesive, violence tends to be more hidden and less frequent. The size of drug profits does not determine violence levels, and neither does the degree of state weakness. Rather, the forms and scale of violent crime derive primarily from the interplay between marketplace competition and state cohesiveness. An unprecedentedly rich empirical account of one of the worst problems of our era, the book will reshape our understanding of the forces driving organized criminal violence in Latin America and elsewhere.

"Events like narcoterrorism in Colombia in the 1980s, or beheadings in Mexico, grab headlines easily. Yet drug traffickers also hide or minimize violence, or engage in quiet wars. The Politics of Drug Violence explains variation in drug violence looking at the interactions between state power, criminal competition, and the forms of coercion criminals employ" (ed.).

When widespread state-criminal collusion persists in transitions from autocracy to democracy, electoral competition becomes a catalyst of large-scale criminal violence.

The author explores common but frequently misleading themes concerning race and drug control, providing an outline of UK drugs strategy from its class-oriented beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present day, identifying the real victims of drugs, drug trafficking and drug supply. She looks at the full range of drugs issues from the supply end of the drugs chain through enforcement and court proceedings to treatment approaches re addicts and other drug users.

Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” Since that time, the country has incarcerated thousands of citizens and spent billions of dollars, and yet the drug problem rolls on. Today, the illegal drug market funds international terrorism, the horrific drug war on the Mexican border, and the senseless violence plaguing our communities, large and small. It is past time for a new direction. This book provides a drug policy framework that will choke off the revenue supporting the illegal drug market. Howard Rahtz outlines a series of drug policy steps buttressed by a historical review of drug policy measures, a review of international efforts against trafficking, and a clear understanding of the dynamics of addiction and its role in facilitating the illegal drug market.

Mexico is a country in crisis. Capitalizing on weakened public institutions, widespread unemployment, a state of lawlessness and the strengthening of links between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, narcotrafficking in the country has flourished during the post-1982 neoliberal era. In fact, it has become one of Mexico's biggest source of revenue, as well as its most violent, with over 12,000 drug-related executions in 2011 alone. In response, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, armed with millions of dollars in US military aid, has launched a crackdown, ostensibly to combat organised crime. Despite this, human rights violations have increased, as has the murder rate, making Ciudad Juárez on the northern border the most dangerous city on the planet. Meanwhile, the supply of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine has continued to grow. In this insightful and controversial book, Watt and Zepeda throw new light on the situation, contending that the 'war on drugs' in Mexico is in fact the pretext for a US-backed strategy to bolster unpopular neoliberal policies, a weak yet authoritarian government and a radically unfair status quo.

Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics explores the notoriously brutal Philippine war on drugs from below. Steffen Bo Jensen and Karl Hapal examine how the war on drugs folded itself into communal and intimate spheres in one Manila neighborhood, Bagong Silang. Police killings have been regular occurrences since the birth of Bagong Silang. Communal Intimacy and the Violence of Politics shows that although the drug war was introduced from the outside, it fit into and perpetuated already existing gendered and generational structures. In Bagong Silang, the war on drugs implicated local structures of authority, including a justice system that had always been deeply integrated into communal relations. The ways in which the war on drugs transformed these intimate relations between the state and its citizens, and between neighbors, may turn out to be the most lasting impact of Duterte's infamously violent policies.

"An extensive overview of the drug trade in the Americas and its impact on politics, economics, and society throughout the region. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice "A first-rate update on the state of the long-fought hemispheric 'war on drugs.' It is particularly timely, as the perception that the war is lost and needs to be changed has never been stronger in Latin and North America."--Paul Gootenberg, author of Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug "A must-read volume for policy makers, concerned citizens, and students alike in the current search for new approaches to forty-year-old policies largely considered to have failed."--David Scott Palmer, coauthor of Power, Institutions, and Leadership in War and Peace "A very useful primer for anyone trying to keep up with the ever-evolving relationship between drug enforcement and drug trafficking."--Peter Andreas, author of Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Despite foreign policy efforts and attempts to combat supply lines, the United States has been for decades, and remains today, the largest single consumer market for illicit drugs on the planet. This volume argues that the war on drugs has been ineffective at best and, at worst, has been highly detrimental to many countries. Leading experts in the fields of public health, political science, and national security analyze how U.S. policies have affected the internal dynamics of Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Central America, and the Caribbean islands. Together, they present a comprehensive overview of the major trends in drug trafficking and organized crime in the early twenty-first century. In addition, the editors and contributors identify emerging issues and propose several policy options to address them. This accessible and expansive volume provides a framework for understanding the limits and liabilities in the U.S.-championed war on drugs throughout the Americas.