Compliance and cooperation? United States narcotics policy abroad and the response of target countries.

摘要

This study focuses on international cooperation, compliance, and the role of states in drug control efforts. Within this framework, this study focuses on the explanatory influences of relative power, state and societal strength on the cooperative behavior of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru with the U.S. drug certification requirements from 1987--1998. This study begins by elucidating the legislative history to argue the origin and endurance of U.S. domestic and foreign illegal drug control strategies. It argues that while the tenets of constructivism best illuminate its origins, realist perspectives help explain why supply-side strategies have endured.; By using statistical regression this study demonstrates the difficulty of fully ascertaining relative power to the compliance behavior of the target countries. Statistical regression outcomes indicate that applied power cannot be fully used as indicators of compliance with the certification requirements by the target countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. Consequently indicators of power and the role they play in realism, as applied to certification and compliance, to be inconclusive.; At the sub-systemic level, this study demonstrates that actual implementation of state preferences is limited by the target countries' level of autonomy and capacity. This was demonstrated by the Peruvian case where illicit coca cultivation was significantly reduced only by recognizing the legality and the preferences of the coca growers, which in turn enabled the Peruvian government to implement successful policies against the Shining Path and the traffickers. And finally this study demonstrates that societal actors involved in the drug trade significantly inhibit the ability of the target countries to cooperate with the certification requirements. By determining the strength of the drug trade actors based on formidability, activity level, and territorial control this study demonstrates the difficulties the target countries, such as Colombia, face in achieving cooperative goals.