Neither a Narco-State nor State Weakness, So What Then?

Escuchar la entrada

*Por Jorge Rolón Luna

Through­out the decades that the drug trade has been ac­tive in Paraguay, the ac­tive in­volve­ment of state agents has be­come ev­i­dent. We’ve seen them traf­fick­ing, fa­cil­i­tat­ing, con­ceal­ing, fi­nanc­ing, as­so­ci­at­ing, and even sell­ing the sus­pen­sion of law en­force­ment.

How­ever, in this ar­ti­cle, I ar­gue that it re­mains in­ac­cu­rate to la­bel Paraguay as a “narco-state.” Other “cri­te­ria” should ex­ist to char­ac­ter­ize a coun­try as such. For in­stance, the drug trade should over­shadow other eco­nomic ac­tiv­i­ties, and there should be vast ar­eas of il­le­gal cul­ti­va­tion within the coun­try.

Var­i­ous es­ti­mates place the hectares ded­i­cated to cannabis cul­ti­va­tion be­tween 6,000 and 7,000, with some sug­gest­ing up to 20,000. In con­trast, soy cul­ti­va­tion alone oc­cu­pies 3,300,000 hectares, a com­par­i­son that speaks for it­self. De­ter­min­ing the to­tal rev­enue from the drug trade is chal­leng­ing due to its clan­des­tine na­ture, but es­ti­mates range from $1.5 bil­lion an­nu­ally for both mar­i­juana and co­caine to nearly $7 bil­lion an­nu­ally for co­caine alone.

The Paraguayan state, adept at jug­gling var­i­ous forms of cor­rup­tion, con­dones, abets, and col­lab­o­rates with pri­vate en­ti­ties in ex­ten­sive cor­rup­tion schemes that span a range of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties: theft, smug­gling, coun­ter­feit­ing, pub­lic pro­cure­ment, and tax eva­sion, among oth­ers. There­fore, if Paraguay is­n’t la­beled a narco-state, it is­n’t for a lack of pub­lic com­plic­ity or in­volve­ment in the drug trade.

Sev­eral rea­sons dis­credit the narco-state la­bel. Firstly, there’s no aca­d­e­mic con­sen­sus on the level, amount, or per­cent­age of state in­volve­ment with drug traf­fick­ing re­quired to la­bel a coun­try as a narco-state. Those who ad­vo­cate for the ex­is­tence of narco-states don’t clar­ify the thresh­old of land cul­ti­va­tion, ex­ports, or GDP per­cent­age that qual­i­fies a coun­try as one.

To bet­ter un­der­stand the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the state and drug traf­fick­ing groups, other con­cep­tual con­structs might be more use­ful. For ex­am­ple, the cat­e­gories of preda­tory, par­a­sitic, and sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ships be­tween crim­i­nal groups and the state can pro­vide in­sights into the Paraguayan sit­u­a­tion. In a preda­tory re­la­tion­ship, crim­i­nal gangs ex­ist with­out threat­en­ing the state or se­cu­rity forces. In a par­a­sitic bond, state cor­rup­tion al­lows com­plic­ity within se­cu­rity forces, the ju­di­ciary, and the gen­eral bu­reau­cracy. In a sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ship, there’s a fu­sion be­tween crim­i­nal groups and cor­rupt state agents, al­low­ing the for­mer to use the state for their ben­e­fit.

An­other cat­e­gory fo­cuses on net­works of macro-crim­i­nal­ity, state cap­ture, and co-op­ta­tion. This model high­lights var­i­ous in­ter­ac­tions be­tween de facto pow­ers and the state, char­ac­ter­ized by net­worked struc­tures in­volv­ing the pub­lic sec­tor in a sys­temic man­ner, also in­volv­ing busi­ness, crim­i­nal, and po­lit­i­cal struc­tures, which can end up cap­tur­ing parts of the state.

A re­cent study from the Uni­ver­sity of Cam­bridge, specif­i­cally on the Paraguayan case and oth­ers like it, an­a­lyzes the cat­e­gory of “crim­i­nal pol­i­tics.” This per­spec­tive looks at the con­nec­tions be­tween crim­i­nal groups, politi­cians, and state agents, who jointly pur­sue their agen­das and goals.

An­other model to un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion in Paraguay is the con­cept of clan­des­tine or­der — clus­ters of or­der, which an­a­lyzes the Ar­gen­tine case. This model de­scribes a po­lit­i­cal power that thrives due to a “con­stant buy­ing and sell­ing of pro­tec­tion that acts as a shield iso­lat­ing state power, cap­tur­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing it to al­low il­licit busi­nesses to pros­per” (the state’s mafia arm).

A fre­quently used con­cept is crim­i­nal gov­er­nance, a crim­i­nal power that emerges in the state’s shadow, not to chal­lenge it but to gen­er­ate in­ter­ac­tion be­tween crim­i­nal groups, so­ci­ety, and pub­lic power.

Lastly, the con­cept of “crim­i­le­gal­ity” is of in­ter­est. This ap­proach refers to the blurred line sep­a­rat­ing le­gal from il­le­gal busi­nesses and em­pha­sizes that or­ga­nized crime has shifted from op­er­at­ing on the fringes of po­lit­i­cal or­der to be­com­ing an in­te­gral part of it.

All these per­spec­tives share com­mon­al­i­ties: one is the ac­tive role of the state and its agents, which chal­lenges the views of a “weak” or “ab­sent” state and ques­tions the sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the state and crim­i­nal groups. An­other com­mon­al­ity is the need to stop con­sid­er­ing crim­i­nal groups as an en­tity op­er­at­ing for profit max­i­miza­tion and be­ing es­sen­tially ex­ter­nal to the po­lit­i­cal or­der. This naive view be­lieves in the “war on drugs” and calls for larger bud­gets to “fight drug traf­fick­ing.”

The rea­sons to dis­credit the narco-state la­bel are many. Firstly, there’s no aca­d­e­mic pre­ci­sion re­gard­ing the level, amount, or per­cent­age of state in­volve­ment with drug traf­fick­ing re­quired to la­bel a coun­try as a narco-state. Those who ad­vo­cate for the ex­is­tence of narco-states don’t clar­ify the thresh­old of land cul­ti­va­tion, ex­ports, or GDP per­cent­age that qual­i­fies a coun­try as one.

Fur­ther­more, the narco-state con­cept is vague; it’s more po­lit­i­cal than tech­ni­cal. The in­tense ac­tiv­ity or pres­ence of crim­i­nal groups in cer­tain ter­ri­to­ries or the un­de­ni­able in­volve­ment of politi­cians, se­cu­rity forces, or frac­tions of bu­reau­cracy can be mis­lead­ing. They don’t sig­nify the state’s de­feat against an en­emy but other phe­nom­ena that need analy­sis and ex­pla­na­tion.

There­fore, from a broad per­spec­tive, it’s pos­si­ble to as­sert that, firstly, the narco-state con­cept poses se­ri­ous prob­lems and, sec­ondly, for mul­ti­ple rea­sons, it’s not suit­able to char­ac­ter­ize the Paraguayan re­al­ity. Other the­o­ret­i­cal mod­els can do so more ac­cu­rately.

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

Cover im­age: Roberto Go­i­riz.