This paper is about the irregular war in Rio de Janeiro regarding its rules and dynamics, its links with local politics and transnational business, as well as the actors' subjective meanings, part of the ethnographic data gathered over years. My approach has been to interact with many actors...

For decades, illicit economies have predominantly been studied and debated as a security problem with social and development consequences. However, the interaction between illicit economies and the environment, in cases such as illicit drug crop cultivation and drugs production, is more recent...

Few expect illegal drug markets to completely disappear in a world of legally regulated psychoactive substances, but it is likely that the regulation of currently illicit drugs would significantly challenge the business model of today’s drug trafficking organizations. This article examines if...

This paper used publicly available data, such as the analysis of 103 court cases to make a profile of those convicted for cannabis cultivation in Albania. There are multiple reports on drugs and organized crime in Albania which provide information on the seizures of illicit substances, law...

The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA) is in the south of Venezuela, a region rich in minerals and natural resources with a particular social, economic, and security dynamic. Due to its remoteness and difficult access, different actors have found a privileged space to conduct criminal activities....

This volume is part of the response to the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on international drug policy and the emergence of analysis of international drug policy in academic literature. Editors David Bewley-Taylor and Khalid Tinasti, both respected authors in their own right,...

The special issue proposes "urban peace" as a way of thinking about policy responses to the dynamics of crime, violence, and exclusion that are associated with illicit economies. This approach builds on the notions of connectedness, proximity and trust between individuals, different segments of...

This paper highlights the complex and contested relationship between drugs and development policies globally. It uses a recent experience in Thailand to showcase the link between drugs and development policies while highlighting the difficult international terrain for forging a common United...

In a search for appropriate theory, this essay inserts drug trafficking, the world’s largest illicit economic activity, within a wider analytical frame called the ‘covert netherworld.’ Through the convergence of three factors-covert operations, illicit commerce, and social milieu-such...

Puzzled about why and how coca-growing areas in Bolivia do not have the same levels of violence and criminality experienced in their communities, eight peasant leaders from various coca-growing areas of Colombia joined a study tour to investigate. Notwithstanding differences in histories of...