Theorising state–narco relations in Bolivia’s nascent democracy (1982–1993): governance,order and political transition |
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Authors: | Allan Gillies |
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Institution: | School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland |
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Abstract: | Conventional policy and academic discourses have generally held illicit drug economies in Latin America to be synergistic with violence and instability. The case of post-transition Bolivia (1982–1993) confounds such assumptions. Applying a political economy approach, this article moves beyond mainstream analyses to examine how the Bolivian drug trade became interwoven with informal forms of governance, order and political transition. I argue that state–narco networks – a hangover from Bolivia’s authoritarian era – played an important role in these complex processes. In tracing the evolution of these interactions, the article advances a more nuanced theorisation of the relationship between the state and the drug trade in an understudied case. |
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Keywords: | Political economy of illicit drugs governance democratisation Latin America state-building |
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