Despite investing billions of dollars in counter-narcotics program, the Colombian government has failed to reduce cocaine and heroin production. Why? What has become known as the “Colombian narcotics dilemma”, and how do Colombian trafficking organizations respond to state anti-drugs policies?

Drug Trafficking

Provide an answer to one of the following questions. Your answer should be informed and comprehensive (250-350 words) and sources should be cited.Refer to the assigned readings.

• Given the constraints in drug smuggling operations during COVID, in the routes, based on the theoretical understanding , what strategies the drug traffickers might choose, in terms of route, type of drugs, type of method (air, land, ad sea) to move drugs from supply to demand countries. Take a stance on any of the theories studied in the module.

• Do you agree that drug trafficking is the direct outcome of state and economic failure and that affluent and developed (stable) democratic states are most often the victims of drug trafficking groups from states in the “Global South” (supply countries)? Reflect on the relationship between democracy, state failure, economic failure and drug trafficking. Refer to the assigned readings/studies and provide examples.

Relevant readings:

Jonathan H. C. Kelman, States can play, too: constructing a typology of state participation in illicit flows; Smuggler’s Blues: Examining Why Countries Become Narcotics Transit States Using the New International Narcotics Production and Transit(INAPT) Data Set; Sung, H.E. (2004). State Failure, Economic Failure, and Predatory Organized Crime: A Comparative Analysis, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 41(2), 111-129; Passas, N. (2000). Global Anomie, Dysnomie, and Economic Crime: Hidden Consequences of Neoliberalism and Globalization in Russia and Around the World.

• Despite investing billions of dollars in counter-narcotics program, the Colombian government has failed to reduce cocaine and heroin production. Why? What has become known as the “Colombian narcotics dilemma”, and how do Colombian trafficking organizations respond to state anti-drugs policies?

e.g., Kenny, M., (1999). When criminals outsmart the state: understanding the learning capacity of Colombian drug trafficking organizations.

• Discuss the importance of social ties, social learning and social opportunity structures in understanding drug trafficking. It has been argued that social ties play an important role in organized crime because they provide access to profitable criminal opportunities. To what degree social opportunity structure plays a role in understanding intergenerational continuity? To what extend social learning plays a role in understanding the development and continuity of DT organizations?

e.g., Meintje van Dijk, Edward Kleemans&Veroni Eichelsheim (2019) work on the Mechanisms of Intergenerational (Dis)Continuity in Organized Crime Families; Kenny, M., (1999). When criminals outsmart the state: understanding the learning capacity of Colombian drug trafficking organizations.

• Drawing on a rich folklore about drug-trafficking some ethnographic studies shows how drug commerce has become a “normal,” expectable part of everyday life. The desensitizing of the population affected by DT, as illustrated by everyday drug folklore, are a direct challenge to the idea that the government is winning the “Drug War.” Discuss also the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy to explain the intergenerational continuity of DT. Also, how does the emphasize on materialism (materialistic cultures) normalize DT activities (Economic Strain, IAT). Feel free to also elaborate on other cultural aspects: e.g, boredom.

Refer to:

Dolliver, D. S. (2015). Socio-cultural impacts on drug trafficking trends in Europe. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice; Richmond, K. L., & Richmond, R. G. (2014). Corridos, drugs, and violence: an analysis of Mexican drug ballads. Howard Campbell (2005) Drug trafficking stories: Everyday forms of Narco-folklore on the U.S.-Mexico border; Meintje van Dijk, Edward Kleemans&Veroni Eichelsheim (2019) work on the Mechanisms of Intergenerational (Dis)Continuity in Organized Crime Families.

• The prominent growth in illicit globalization has been broadly seen as an anti-state phenomenon, and criminological literature has largely reflected this focus on non-state actors. However, states too have used and will continue to rely on illicit globalization for their own ends. A state or states may be driving demand, providing supply, or facilitating the transport of any given illicit flow (or perhaps all of the above simultaneously). Discuss in which ways states (state laws/policies, state failures, corruption) contribute towards the rise and continuity of drug trafficking activities. Why, how and when state facilitate DT?

Refer to:

Jonathan H. C. Kelman, States can play, too: constructing a typology of state participation in illicit flows; Smuggler’s Blues: Examining Why Countries Become Narcotics Transit States Using the New International Narcotics Production and Transit(INAPT) Data Set; Sung, H.E. (2004). State Failure, Economic Failure, and Predatory Organized Crime: A Comparative Analysis, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 41(2), 111-129.

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