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8 - The Challenge of Implementing Conditionality

from PART III - CONDITIONAL REPRESSION AS OUTCOME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2017

Benjamin Lessing
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Summary

Where conditionality of repression increased, it did so through reform efforts by actors within the state security apparatus. These efforts succeeded in Colombia and Rio de Janeiro but not Mexico. This chapter lays out a framework for explain- ing why. Agency—the strategic choices of decision-makers—is clearly important: President Felipe Calderón's commitment to a policy, or at least a public stance, of combatting all cartels “equally” proved firm, ultimately hobbling reform efforts. President César Gaviria and Governor Sérgio Cabral's willingness to pursue new approaches was equally critical. Yet the institutional and political contexts in which these leaders made their decisions also varied in important ways. In particular, I argue that leaders face similar obstacles to implementing conditional policies—what I call logistical and acceptability constraints. Overcoming these is the key to successful implementation of conditional reforms.

Thus far, I have argued that conditionality of repression is a key determinant of whether cartels respond to state crackdowns with increased or decreased violence. Part I lays out several logics of anti-state violence, showing how unconditional crackdowns give cartels increased incentives for anti-state violence, and arguing that conditionality of repression could counter these incentives and induce cartels to eschew violence. Part II presents case-study evidence supporting my theory: unconditional crackdowns tended to trigger or exacerbate cartel–state conflict, while turns toward conditionality seem to have had strong, violence-reducing effects. The case studies also provided descriptive narratives of the efforts of reformers that, to differing degrees in each case, succeeded in in raising the conditionality of repression.

The natural next step is to turn our attention back to the state and ask why and when leaders adopt unconditional versus conditional policies in the first place. Indeed, given the success of conditional approaches where they have been tried, one might wonder why they have not been adopted more universally.

Of course, leaders may not understand the potential for unconditional repression to spark cartel–state conflict, or they may simply not prioritize min- imizing violence. Both factors probably played some role in the unconditional nature of initial state crackdowns on cartels and subsequent “doubling down.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Making Peace in Drug Wars
Crackdowns and Cartels in Latin America
, pp. 241 - 249
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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