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ZPearson Dissertation GradSchool.pdf (52.21 MB)

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Coca Si, Cocaina No? The Intimate Politics of International Drug Control Policy and Reform in Bolivia

Pearson, Zoe
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1451916063

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Geography.
Across the Western Hemisphere and around the world people are calling for reform to decades of punitive international drug control policies. It is abundantly clear that punitive drug control policies have failed to meaningfully reduce rates of illegal drug consumption and production, and that these policies have themselves damaged individuals, families, communities, health, livelihoods, and the environment. The Plurinational State of Bolivia is a major producer of the coca leaf—a medicinal plant native to the Andes, and the primary ingredient in cocaine—and is one of the first countries to institute comprehensive reforms to orthodox drug control policy. Under the leadership of President Evo Morales, cocaleros (coca growers) are carrying out a “community-based” approach to reducing coca cultivation. The approach, known as “social control,” relies heavily on coca growers’ taking responsibility to police themselves and each other. Social control is widely seen to reject decades of U.S. government “drug war” policy interventions in Bolivia and elsewhere in the Americas. But more than simply a rejection of U.S. intervention, social control has also effectively realized the stated goals of the international drug control policy community. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, social control achieved a 34% reduction in the amount of land dedicated to coca production from 2010-2014. This dissertation situates the emergence of social control in the context of drug war geopolitics, decades of violent U.S.-supported intervention in Bolivia, and calls for reform to harmful international drug control policy. The dissertation first presents a historical narrative of the drug war as an illiberal tactic of government. Paradoxically, this tactic is couched in liberal discourses that justify state intervention through delineation of socio-spatial distinctions between harm and health in relation to engagement with illegal drugs. This discourse legitimates often-violent interventions that target populations and places deemed responsible for drug-related insecurities, and calls into question the novelty of new “harm reduction” drug policy approaches. Following from this historical and conceptual work are a series of arguments about the promises and pitfalls of social control in Bolivia. Here, my analysis draws from ethnographic research, including almost eighty semi-structured interviews, numerous conversations, policy document analysis, and in-situ observations, to suggest that, while social control represents an important challenge to orthodox drug control policy, its contradictions call into question the sustainability of supply-side “harm-reduction” reforms. Positively, Bolivia’s coca control approach demonstrates the powerful potential of a politics of social reproduction organized around an inclusive definition of wellbeing. Unfortunately, however, underlying drug war distinctions—health/harm and legality/illegality—persist in social control. Cocaleros and the government accordingly work to substantiate arguments for the right to grow coca by drawing tenuous boundaries between who can grow and sell coca, and where. I show that this work to accommodate residual drug war distinctions results in a series of tensions among coca growers, the redistribution of drug policy harms onto other populations, and social, political, and ecological effects that threaten the future of social control and cocalero politics more generally.
Kendra McSweeney (Advisor)
Mathew Coleman (Committee Member)
Becky Mansfield (Committee Member)
Mary Thomas (Committee Member)
230 p.
Geography; Latin American Studies
Bolivia; coca; drug control policy; political ecology; geography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Pearson, Z. (2016). Coca Si, Cocaina No? The Intimate Politics of International Drug Control Policy and Reform in Bolivia [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1451916063

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Pearson, Zoe. Coca Si, Cocaina No? The Intimate Politics of International Drug Control Policy and Reform in Bolivia. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1451916063.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Pearson, Zoe. "Coca Si, Cocaina No? The Intimate Politics of International Drug Control Policy and Reform in Bolivia." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1451916063

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1451916063
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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.