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.