Journal
THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY
Volume 43, Issue 11, Pages 2674-2692Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2021.1971517
Keywords
law enforcement; state legitimacy; counternarcotics; (phyto)sanitary norms; coca; peasants
Categories
Funding
- UK Global Challenges Research Fund [ES/P011543/1]
- UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
- University of Sussex [ES/J500173/1]
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For decades, Colombian governments have linked illegal crops with statelessness and proposed increased law enforcement as the solution to issues in drug-producing regions. However, accounts from coca growers reveal that they face persecution not only related to the coca economy, but also due to state forces imposing sanitary and environmental norms. This leads to resentment towards the state and challenges its authority in these territories.
For decades, Colombian governments have imposed a narrative linking illegal crops with statelessness and presenting 'more state' and specifically 'more law enforcement' as the solution to a swathe of problems in drug-producing regions. We draw on coca growers' own accounts of law enforcement to critique this narrative. Their accounts - specifically from Putumayo in Colombia's Amazonian frontier - refer to persecution for many of the things they do in their everyday lives, not just those directly related to the coca economy. Their livelihoods are constantly under threat from state forces as a result of counternarcotics operations but also due to the imposition of (phyto)sanitary and environmental norms. This generates resentment towards the state, undermining its efforts to establish authority in these territories. Thus, building on coca farmers' accounts, we argue that state weakness in drug-producing areas is a problem of quality and not only quantity. Improving quality means transforming the way lawmakers and enforcers relate to rural citizens. If the Colombian state continues to wage war against the peasantry, it will hardly achieve effective governance of the coca frontier. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1971517 .
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