Description
In 2017, illicit drug use resulted in the premature death of 585,348 individuals worldwide. The demand for illegal drugs is staggering, with almost 275 million people aged 15-64 using them at least once in 2016. The question arises as to how to define and construct victory in the war against drug proliferation and how to implement widespread state violence entrenched in narcotic drug governance. The existing scholarly literature on the global politics of narcotic drug regulation is empirically rich but lacks a comprehensive explanatory theory for the persistence of widespread state violence. This paper proposes a theory of militarism in global drug wars to explain the persistence of state violence and abuses in narcotic drug regulation, focusing on the normative justifications and patterns of violent practices by state leaders.
