Challenges, Cooperation and Paradoxes in the Coca Cocaine Complex

Mariá de Los Ángeles Lasa

doi:10.22151/politikon.19.1

Authors

Mariá de Los Ángeles Lasa University of Camerino

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.19.1

Keywords:

South America, non-state actors, war on drugs, European Union, United States

Abstract

The coca-cocaine complex in South America is one of the most serious threats to the region’s political, economic and social institutions. It has infected the public and private sectors with the virus of corruption and violence, and it has brought about the intervention of extra-regional actors that have contributed to worsening the situation. In the fight against this threat since the 1970s, South American countries have had the support of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) which, these being the world’s largest consumers of cocaine in the world, has become the source of a vicious paradox: the challenges for South American states arise not only from the coca-cocaine complex itself, but also from the cooperation of those world superpowers in the fight against it. This paper analyses both the cooperation among drug actors –an issue that has historically been overlooked–, and the previously mentioned paradox in the case of South American states and the EU.

Author Biography

Mariá de Los Ángeles Lasa, University of Camerino

Mariá de Los Ángeles Lasa, born in Argentina 1986 is a CUIA Scholar and Doctoral Fellow in Social Sciences on Work and Legality at the Department of Law and Politics, School of Advanced Studies, Università degli Studi di Camerino (Italy). She is currently Visiting Researcher at the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin). She has published several articles on public corruption, drugs and organized crime in books and academic journals in Argentina, Italy, Mexico and Switzerland. Her interests include security studies, drug trafficking, counternarcotics policies, and violence and criminality in Latin America. She would like to thank her Ph.D. Advisor, Dr. Giovanna Ricci, for providing useful comments on her first drafts, Prof. Andrea Vartalitis, from the National University of Villa María (Argentina), for her advice and careful editing of the final English version of this paper.