Transcript ANT 2410 Fall 2015 Political Economy of Drugs

Globalization and Political
Economy: Overview
• Political economy, globalization and
commodity chains
• Informal economies
• Neoliberal economic reforms and local
livelihoods
• Case study: the illicit global drug trade
▫ Producers and consumers
▫ Case study of Bolivia (coca/cocaine
production)
▫ Agency and structural violence
▫ Alternatives
What is political economy?
• Interdisciplinary approach that examines how global
and local power structures in societies affect
people’s differential access to and consumption of
resources
• Political economy of globalization
• Commodity chain – path through which goods
are produced, distributed and consumed
• Looks at the disconnection between people and
products in industrialized capitalist economies
Political economy in daily life
• Think about what you’re
wearing right now. Do you
know offhand where any of
your clothing, shoes or
accessories were produced?
• How many people (producers,
middlemen, retailers) were
involved in the production and
sale of these goods?
• How many miles did these
items travel before you
purchased them (how much
fuel was consumed in
transport)?
Informal economies
• Economic activities unregulated by the state; often
undertaken by low-income and unemployed populations
• Illegal goods (underground/black market) – e.g., drugs,
weapons, stolen/smuggled goods, human/organ trafficking
• Scale:
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9.4% of US economy ($650 billion)
27% Italy
40% Brazil
45% Russia
45-85% nonagricultural GDP in Asia
over 80% nonagricultural GDP in Africa
(Schlosser 2003:5-6;Carr and Chen 2001)
Globalization and neoliberal reforms
• Examples of neoliberal
economic reforms (structural
adjustment programs / austerity
measures) imposed by World
Bank/IMF since 1980s:
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Elimination of trade barriers
Currency devaluation
Privatization of state industries
Cutbacks in social spending
Creation of free trade
agreements (e.g., NAFTA) and
free trade zones (Mexico,
Central America, Caribbean,
Asia, etc.)
Nike production factory in China
Effects of neoliberal reforms on local livelihoods
• Generally:
▫ Increased cost of utilities
▫ Decreased value of local
currencies
▫ Competition with foreign,
imported agricultural cash
crops that may cost less than
locally produced goods
▫ Declining quality of health
care, education and social
services
▫ Increased rural-urban
migration for wage labor in
free trade zones
• Case of Bolivia:
▫ Reliance on cash crops to
compete in markets 
increase in coca production
▫ Increases in rural-urban
migration for wage labor
▫ Protests against privatization
of water in Cochabamba
Political economy of the drug trade
• Major part of global economy for over 300 yrs.
▫ Tobacco – originated in Americas; first observed
by Europeans and brought to Europe post-1492
• 20th c. growth of drug trade: opium, cannabis
and coca made illegal in US in 1914  became
pillars of informal economy
• Today – global drug trade = 0.9% of world’s
GDP ($320 billion) (UNODC 2006:17)
Illegal substance abuse: consumers
• 5% of world’s population have used illegal drugs
at least once
• Drugs commonly used worldwide
200
Cannabis
(162)
Amph. (35)
150
100
Cocaine (13)
50
Heroin (11)
0
Millions of people
Ecstasy (10)
Robbins, Richard. 2011. Global Culture and the Problems of Capitalism.
Informal drug economies: key players
• Producers – usually poor rural farmers in
developing nations
• Buyers and processors – cartels, gangs, mules
• Large-scale distributors
• Small retailers (local drug dealers)
• Consumers
Major global drug trafficking routes
• Top producer nations
▫ Opium – Afghanistan,
China, Thailand
▫ Cannabis – Morocco,
Mexico
▫ Coca – Colombia, Peru,
Bolivia
• Top consumer nations
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US
EU countries
Australia
Canada
http://www.princeton.edu/~ina/drugs/sources.html
Global Illicit Cultivation of Coca Leaf, 19902005
Source: www.unodc.org
Bolivia
• Ranks 95 out of 167
nations in HDI
▫ Per capita GNI $4357
▫ Mean yrs of schooling
(adults) 9.2
▫ Life expectancy 66.3
• Major economic sectors:
▫ Agriculture
▫ Mining
▫ Coca production
Producers: Bolivian coca/cocaine
• 3rd largest world producer (>115 metric
tons/yr on > 30,000 hectares); grows
below 6000 ft. in Chapare region
• 1988 Bolivian law allows for the
production of coca on 12,000 hectares
of land near La Paz
• 1990s – US-backed coca eradication
program faced opposition from coca
growers (cocaleros)
• Pres. Morales’ policy: “zero cocaine but
not zero coca”; wants to increase up to
20,000 acres
Producers: Bolivian coca/cocaine
• Process
▫ Leaf harvested pisacocas make pasta (300-500 kg
of leaves = 1 gram) sold to middleman  refined
smuggled resold consumed
• Effects
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Environmental damage
Physical damage to workers
Prostitution – young girls in Chapare
Increase in STIs (estimated at 50% in Chapare region)
Loss of productive labor force in rural areas
Increased food insecurity
Disintegration of communities
Weatherford, Jack. 2009 [1986]. Cocaine and the economic deterioration of Bolivia.
In J.Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds. Conformity and Conflict. NJ: Pearson.
Local cultural meanings of coca
Recent protests in La Paz
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wo
rld-latin-america-12292661
• “Bolivia wants to amend a UN
drugs treaty that bans chewing
coca, which is an ancient
tradition in the Andes. But the
US has said it will veto the
amendment because coca is also
the raw material for making
cocaine.”
• “Bolivian President Morales has
long advocated the recognition
of coca as a plant of great
medicinal, cultural and
religious importance that is
distinct from cocaine.”
Annual prevalence of cocaine use, 2004-05
Number of users
In % of pop. 15-64
yrs.
EUROPE
3,524,000
o.7
West and Central
Europe
3,333,000
1.1
South-East Europe
64,000
0.1
Eastern Europe
127,000
0.1
AMERICAS
8,440,000
1.5
North America
6,459,000
2.3
South America
1,981,000
0.7
ASIA
260,000
0.1
OCEANIA
175,500
0.9
AFRICA
959,000
0.2
GLOBAL
13,358,000
0.3
Source: www.unodc.org
Commodity chain: from coca leaf to street
cocaine/crack
• Avg. price pure cocaine in
Cochabamba, Bolivia:
$5/gram (Weatherford 1986)
• Avg. price of cocaine in US:
$70/g. (wholesale > 1kg);
$166.90/g. (retail)
• Avg. price for crack in US:
$40 (1/4 g.); $160/g.
crack
• Avg. annual income of
Bolivian coca producer:
$1068 (Weatherford 1986)
• Sample annual income of a
NYC cocaine dealer:
$150,000 (sells for
$275/gram) (New York Times
2009)
http://www.justice.gov/dea/concern/cocaine_prices_purity.html
cocaine
‘War on drugs’– policy level
• What is the state’s role?
• Survival strategy in absence of state
assistance?
• Criminalization of marginalized
populations  seizure of farms in
Bolivia; high rates of incarceration
in US
Structural violence and agency
• Structural violence – physical and psychological
harm that results from exploitive and unjust social,
political and economic systems
(refs: Paul Farmer, Nancy Scheper-Hughes)
• Agency – the individual’s capacity to act in the
world; contingent on socioecon. and political realities
▫ What are the structural constraints to personal agency
for producers and consumers?
• How does globalization affect people’s ability to make
economic choices?
Alternative livelihoods
• Alternate crops (banana, cacao, etc.), organic
agriculture
• Artisanal production / small commerce
• Cattle raising
• Land Registry and Rural Property
Organization in Bolivia – working to register
560,000 hectares of private land
• Ecotourism
▫ Forest Guardian Families Program in Colombia
– 88,000 families (support from USAID, Spain
and USODC)
http://www.unodc.org
Ethnographic studies of political economy
Commodity chains
Sweetness and Power: The Place
of Sugar in Modern History
(Sidney Mintz 1985)
In Bolivia
The Devil and Commodity
Fetishism in South America
(Michael Taussig 1980)
We Eat the Mines and the Mines
Eat Us (June Nash 1979)
In urban U.S.
In Search of Respect: Selling Crack
in El Barrio
(Philippe Bourgois 1995)