Overview

Paramilitaries, crime, and thousands of disappeared in official numbers – the so-called ‚war on drugs‘ has perpetuated violence in parts of Latin America, at times precisely in regions of economic growth. Legal and illegal economy are difficult to distinguish. A failure of state institutions to provide security for its citizens does not sufficiently explain this. This book offers a detailed analysis of the role of the state in violence: To what extent and for whom do states produce order and disorder, by devising security policies within the ‘fight against drugs’? Which social forces support and drive such policies? This first comparative study of Colombian and Mexican security policies employs state theory and critical political economy to understand recent dynamics of violence in both contexts. It highlights how the ‘war on drugs’ has exacerbated contradictions driven by a particular economic model, and simultaneously resorts to discourses which criminalize precisely those that this model has radically disadvantaged.

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9781538151099

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Theoretically innovative and empirically detailed, this book offers a fresh take on the 'war on drugs' in Latin America. By asking, 'for whom do states produce order and disorder?' Alke Jenss reveals the classed, raced, and gendered social struggles that lie at the heart of contemporary security policies. This text stands as a vital contribution for understanding the basis of state violence in the region.--Chris Hesketh, Oxford Brookes University

This book is an extraordinarily valuable contribution to our understanding of the failed 'war on drugs.' It provides new and theoretically sophisticated insights from both Colombia and Mexico and a fascinating focus on the role of the state-security apparatuses and their selective deployment in reproducing colonial violence and capitalist extractivist imaginaries. This book succeeds in its ambitious combination of political economy analyses with decolonial ones.--Julie Cupples, University of Edinburgh Theoretically innovative and empirically detailed, this book offers a fresh take on the 'war on drugs' in Latin America. By asking, 'for whom do states produce order and disorder?' Alke Jenss reveals the classed, raced, and gendered social struggles that lie at the heart of contemporary security policies. This text stands as a vital contribution for understanding the basis of state violence in the region.--Chris Hesketh, Oxford Brookes University

Author Information

Alke Jenss is senior researcher at Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute, affiliated with the University of Freiburg.

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