Dinámicas locales en torno al cultivo de hoja de coca: elementos para el estudio desde el mercado ilegal de la cocaína

Abstract

The autonomy of the State to achieve policy goals is affected by its relation with the social actors. The dynamics of the cocaine market offers an important arena to understand how this relations affect the control of illegal markets. The actors involved in the supply chain of this illicit market, deploy its resources in order to limit the autonomy of the State, and to affect the effectiveness of the drug policy. Based on a review of recent studies, it is possible to propose some ideas in order to understand the configuration of this relations in the sideline of the control of the coca cultivation in Peru and the Andean Region. This means understanding that (1) the dynamic of this agricultural activity—and its valuation as a public problem—is strongly associated to the economic rationality of the cocaine market; (2) that this rationality has great importance in the historical defense of the coca cultivation; and (3) that, nowdays, the tensions between the State and the social actors involved in the cultivation of coca in Peru, are maily based on control and defense strategies at a local level.