Drug trafficking

Between Max Weber and the Narco-State: Is Paraguay a Narco-State?


By Jorge Rolón Luna*

The term “narco-state” (NS) has be­come com­mon when it comes to des­ig­nat­ing coun­tries fac­ing se­ri­ous prob­lems such as vi­o­lence, cor­rup­tion, crim­i­nal groups al­legedly con­trol­ling ter­ri­to­ries, and where sec­tors of the po­lit­i­cal class, state bu­reau­cracy and se­cu­rity forces are given over to the “narco”. The Paraguayan State, where some of these is­sues have been ob­served with cer­tain clar­ity for some time now, has not es­caped be­ing char­ac­ter­ized in this way. What hap­pens is that this view en­tails a con­cep­tual mis­take that leads to a wrong di­ag­no­sis of the prob­lem and, there­fore, to the in­sis­tence on sup­posed so­lu­tions that do not even al­ter the sit­u­a­tion. In a se­ries of ar­ti­cles, I will first pre­sent the back­ground of this mis­taken con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion (orig­i­nated in the use of a We­ber­ian ma­trix of analy­sis of the State); sec­ond, I will ad­vance with al­ter­na­tive con­cep­tu­al­iza­tions that are much more pre­cise to an­a­lyze the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the State and drug traf­fick­ing; and, fi­nally, I will con­clude with a third ar­ti­cle that il­lus­trates why Paraguay is, more than a narco-state, a State that runs a mul­ti­plic­ity of il­licit busi­nesses.

An NS is one that is nor­mally con­sid­ered to have one or two fun­da­men­tal roles: to pro­duce some type of il­le­gal drug or to serve as a tran­sit cor­ri­dor for il­le­gal drugs. Sev­eral coun­tries have been iden­ti­fied in these roles, such as Colom­bia, Mex­ico, Burma or Afghanistan. These ac­cu­sa­tions have come from spe­cial­ized in­ter­na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tions of the UN (UN­OCD), heads of state, politi­cians, jour­nal­ists and even aca­d­e­mics. Given that Paraguay oc­cu­pies a pre­pon­der­ant place in the pro­duc­tion and tran­sit of drugs, it is not sur­pris­ing that sev­eral sec­tors qual­ify Paraguay as a NS. This has been seen in the me­dia, civil so­ci­ety, for­eign diplo­macy, in­ter­na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tions and even in the acad­e­mia.

These views are in­con­sis­tent be­cause they clash with the con­cep­tual ma­trix de­rived from Max We­ber’s work on the State. We­ber de­fines the State as that hu­man com­mu­nity which, within a given ter­ri­tory (ter­ri­tory is the dis­tinc­tive el­e­ment), claims (suc­cess­fully) for it­self the mo­nop­oly of le­git­i­mate phys­i­cal vi­o­lence”. From this per­spec­tive, the the­sis of Paraguay as “an NS” leads one to think that the “narco” con­trols parts of the ter­ri­tory, im­pos­ing its vi­o­lence and sur­pass­ing the ca­pac­ity of the pub­lic ap­pa­ra­tus it­self, which would have given in to its in­sur­mount­able power, plac­ing its struc­ture and func­tions at the ser­vice of ends dif­fer­ent to those of a mod­ern State.

Neither NS nor “absence of the state.” The Paraguayan state is not an entity that is directly involved in the drug trafficking business, although at times it may seem so, nor is the absence of the state taken advantage of by criminal groups to prosper in this supposed power vacuum. In reality, what is evident is a State that is very present to regulate, protect and profit from a business that is functional to the maintenance of the political system, on the one hand; and an absence of the rule of law, on the other.

The prob­lem is that, ac­cord­ing to We­ber, for non-state or­ga­ni­za­tions to con­trol ter­ri­tory they can only do so to the ex­tent that the state grants them the right to phys­i­cal vi­o­lence. If those who con­trol ter­ri­tory in Paraguay – drug traf­fick­ers, in this case – do so out­side the State, we would be deal­ing with a case of two-headed power, a “du­op­oly of vi­o­lence”, con­trary to the We­ber­ian con­cept of “mo­nop­oly of le­git­i­mate vi­o­lence”.

For We­ber, the mo­nop­oly of vi­o­lence is the dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of a state. This is based on three rea­sons: the preser­va­tion of state unity vis-à-vis the out­side world; the even­tual need to ex­pand the coun­try’s re­sources and ter­ri­tory by means of war; state force as a per­ma­nent threat to those who seek to change the or­ga­ni­za­tion of so­ci­ety (in­ter­nal peace). In other words, a State that is sur­passed by groups, fac­tions, or en­ti­ties of any kind in the ap­pli­ca­tion, pos­ses­sion and mo­nop­oly of le­git­i­mate force lacks one of its fun­da­men­tal qual­i­ties. With­out be­ing the sole source of the right to vi­o­lence, the State as such would not ex­ist and would en­ter an­ar­chy.

For We­ber, the le­git­i­mate ex­er­cise of vi­o­lence is the most im­por­tant at­tribute of the State, even in on­to­log­i­cal terms. With­out this es­sen­tial at­tribute there is nei­ther ter­ri­tory, nor pop­u­la­tion, nor le­gal or­der; there is no State. What al­lows the po­lit­i­cal ex­is­tence of the State is its su­pe­ri­or­ity over any ex­ist­ing power in a given ter­ri­tory, which in turn al­lows it to main­tain it­self over time.

From this con­cep­tual frame­work, it is dif­fi­cult to ex­plain how crim­i­nal groups ded­i­cated to drug traf­fick­ing em­body the State it­self. How they have con­sti­tuted a par­al­lel state by im­pos­ing their le­gal or­der, mo­nop­o­liz­ing the use of le­git­i­mate force in a ter­ri­tory, to turn it into an or­ga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated en­tirely to drug traf­fick­ing. To date, there is no em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence of such a thing. What has been proven is that the State has al­ways con­trolled the busi­ness of pro­hib­ited sub­stances, since its be­gin­nings in the late 1960s, and that this model has not been sub­stan­tially al­tered.

 Seen in this light, an even­tual sur­ren­der of the Paraguayan State – with the loss, re­duc­tion, lim­i­ta­tion, or se­ri­ous con­tes­ta­tion against its will of the mo­nop­oly on the use of force – must nec­es­sar­ily be un­der­stood as the non-ex­is­tence or re­place­ment of the State as an en­tity. This is the view that lies be­hind the also wide­spread idea that, with the fail­ure of the Paraguayan State in its ca­pac­ity to mo­nop­o­lize vi­o­lence against drug traf­fick­ing groups, what we have is an “ab­sent State”.

It is very com­mon to find politi­cians, com­mu­ni­ca­tors and even aca­d­e­mics who ar­gue that this sup­posed ab­sence of the state ex­plains the rise of crim­i­nal groups in cer­tain ar­eas of the coun­try. Some­thing that, in­ci­den­tally, has been called into ques­tion by Car­los Peris with Sarah Cerna and an­other by So­nia Alda Mejías, in which data in hand re­futes this vi­sion, re­peated ad nau­seam in the case of Paraguay.

Nei­ther NS nor “ab­sence of the state.” The Paraguayan state is not an en­tity that is di­rectly in­volved in the drug traf­fick­ing busi­ness, al­though at times it may seem so, nor is the ab­sence of the state taken ad­van­tage of by crim­i­nal groups to pros­per in this sup­posed power vac­uum. In re­al­ity, what is ev­i­dent is a State that is very pre­sent to reg­u­late, pro­tect and profit from a busi­ness that is func­tional to the main­te­nance of the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, on the one hand; and an ab­sence of the rule of law, on the other.

*Re­searcher. For­mer di­rec­tor of the Ob­ser­va­tory of Co­ex­is­tence and Cit­i­zen Se­cu­rity of the Min­istry of the In­te­rior.

Cover im­age: Roberto Go­i­riz

 

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