From criminals to citizens: the applicability of Bolivia’s community-based coca control policy to Peru

Grisaffi, T., Farthing, L., Ledebur, K., Paredes, M. and Pastor, A. (2021) From criminals to citizens: the applicability of Bolivia’s community-based coca control policy to Peru. World Development, 146. 105610. ISSN 0305-750X doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105610

Abstract/Summary

Between 2006-2019, Bolivia emerged as a world leader in formulating a participatory, non-violent model to gradually limit coca production in a safe and sustainable manner while simultaneously offering farmers realistic economic alternatives to coca. Our study finds that not only has this model reduced violence, but it has effectively expanded social and civil rights in hitherto marginal regions. In contrast, Peru has continued to conceptualise ‘drugs’ as a crime and security issue. This has led to U.S.-financed forced crop eradication, putting the burden onto impoverished farmers, generating violence and instability. At the request of farmers, the Peruvian government has made a tentative move towards implementing one aspect of Bolivia’s community control in Peru. Could it work? We address this question by focusing on participatory development with a special emphasis on the role of local organisations and the relationship between growers and the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, focus group discussions and secondary research, we find that for community control to have any chance of success in Peru, grassroots organisations must be strengthened and grower trust in the state created. The study also demonstrates that successful participatory development in drug crop regions is contingent on land titling and robust state investment, which strengthens farmer resolve to participate so as to avoid a return to the repression of the past.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/98822
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105610
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Elsevier
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