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21. Latin American Drugs II- Improving Policy and Reducing Harm

Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The policies of a decade or more to stop the flow of cocaine from the Andean source countries, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, to the two largest consumer markets, the U.S. and Europe, have proved insufficient and ineffective. Cocaine availability and demand have essentially remained stable in the U.S. and have been increasing in Europe. Use in Latin American transit countries, in particular Argentina, Brazil and Chile, is on the rise. Flawed counter-drug polices also are causing considerable collateral damage in Latin America, undermining support for democratic governments in some countries, distorting governance and social priorities in others, causing all too frequent human rights violations and fuelling armed and/or social conflicts in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. A comprehensive shared policy reassessment and a new consensus on the balance between approaches emphasising law enforcement and approaches emphasising alternative development and harm reduction are urgently required.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, and War on Drugs
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Latin America, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia

22. Five Perspectives on the Mérida Initiative: What It Is and Why It Must Succeed

Author:
Ted Brennan, Robert "Bobby" Charles, Henry Cuellar, Roberta Jacobson, and Armand Peschard-Sverdrup
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Drug abuse and related crime claim nearly thirty-five thousand American lives and sap $180 billion from our economy every year.1 Although the United States is understandably preoccupied with the threat of Islamic terrorism, it must never let down its guard against the well-financed, bloodthirsty, illicit drug cartels that exact a staggering price on our well-being and economy. President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget proposes to spend well over $14 billion for federal programs to suppress demand and attack supply. Because most cocaine and heroin find their way to the U.S. market through Mexico, it is essential that Mexican authorities confront the illegal drug syndicates whose cross-border crime threatens both countries. The Mérida Initiative—named for the Yucatan city where Bush, then-president of Guatemala Óscar Berger, and Mexican president Felipe Calderón met in March 2007—proposes to make a $1.4 billion multiyear U.S. contribution to support Mexican law enforcement and judicial reforms in their antidrug efforts. The challenges are formidable: Mexico's relatively weak judicial institutions are hard-pressed to take on these well-heeled gangsters on their own, and both sides are protective of their national sovereignty. Nevertheless, both countries have signaled their commitment to this cause: at a February 7, 2008, hearing, the Drug Enforcement Agency's chief of intelligence, Anthony Placido, praised the tangible measures being taken and sacrifices being made by Mexico today and urged skeptical U.S. lawmakers to seize the opportunity to cooperate with Mexican allies against a common foe. Despite heavy media focus on the counternarcotics elements of the initiative, when the specifics of the initiative are examined, it is clear that its aim is to strengthen Mexico's security institutions, enabling them to deal with the threat nonstate actors—be they terrorists, organized crime, criminal gangs, or domestic radical groups—pose to the country's security.
Topic:
Crime and War on Drugs
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Mexico

23. President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia

Author:
Evo Morales
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
This World Leaders Forum program features a keynote address by President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia followed by a question and answer session with the audience.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, War on Drugs, International Affairs, and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Latin America and Bolivia

24. Drugs, Civil War, and the Conditional Impact of the Economy on Democracy

Author:
Michael Coppedge, Angel Alvarez, and Lucas González
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Theorizing about the influence of modernization on democracy is once again in vogue. Nevertheless, this theme faces an important obstacle: the leverage of modernization hypotheses is generally modest. Key modernization variables, especially per capita GDP, almost always explain part of the variance in democracy, but rarely more than half. Also, as one can see in certain Latin American cases, economic growth sometimes has a negative impact on democracy. This paper argues that the impact of economic growth varies from country to country for systematic, not random, reasons. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) in a cross-regional sample of 108 countries from 1978 to 1999, the paper shows that it is crucial to distinguish between the short- term effect of per capita GDP growth within each country and the cross-national effect of long-term growth. A distinct causal mechanism is at work at each level of analysis. More precisely, the paper identifies four factors that condition the impact of economic growth on democracy: the existing political regime, the democratic experience of each country, the frequency of civil war, and the importance of drug trafficking in the domestic economy. Although other factors probably also condition the effect of the economy on democracy and democratization, the model used in this paper explains 82 percent of the variance in the sample, which is substantially greater than what is typically found in other studies of democratization. Consequently, this paper shows that it is necessary to continue to refine hypotheses about the conditional effect of the economy in order to improve conventional explanations of variation in levels of democracy, whether within one country or in comparative perspective.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and War on Drugs
Political Geography:
Latin America

25. Helping Win the War on Our Doorstep

Author:
Roger Noriega
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Most of the fiercest opponents of the comprehensive immigration reform legislation saw no higher priority than securing our borders. With that divisive bill shelved for the foreseeable future, controlling our frontiers remains an urgent challenge. As we focus our attention on that task, many will be surprised to discover that our neighbor to the south is in the fight of its life. Unless we provide Mexico with the substantial help it needs and wants to battle the deadly drug syndicates that terrorize that nation, we may soon find our southern border more porous, dangerous, and unmanageable than ever.
Topic:
Political Economy, Regional Cooperation, and War on Drugs
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico