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An Industrial Geography of Cocaine

ALLEN, CHRISTIAN MICHAEL
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029351158

Abstract Details

2002, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : Geography.
Latin American cocaine trafficking organizations comprise an indigenous, globally competitive, multinational industry. Their business operations are deeply integrated within the economic and political systems of countries throughout the region. Because the drug trade confers clear economic benefits to parts of Latin America, local authorities are often reluctant to attack the industry at its roots.The widespread adoption of market-oriented economic reforms has re-drawn the region's economic, political, and social landscape. Drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have responded to these challenging conditions far more successfully than the region's licit firms, which have had little success to date in international markets. Expanded international flows of goods and capital offer DTOs numerous opportunities to exploit licit channels to move product and profits across borders. Such opportunities reflect a fundamental tension between economic liberalization and drug prohibition, the policy regimes most deeply influencing the cocaine trade.The model of the cocaine industry presented in this research is schematic and conceptual rather than formulaic. It is inspired by a catholic view of modeling that sees them as structured syntheses of data, rather than as formal laws or equations. The schema developed here reflects the contextual landscape within which traffickers operate. The proximate environment (both geographic and industrial) of a DTO poses opportunities and challenges that require strategic responses. While criminal enterprises operate in a more complex and uncertain setting than licit firms, their competitive success is determined in fundamentally similar ways. Models developed by geographers to explain the spatial behavior of licit multinational firms are profitably applied here to the operations of DTOs. No single model can account for the dynamism and variability found in economic systems. Accordingly, this research uses a variety of conceptual tools and research methods that reflect the broad scope of economic geography. The mode of analysis applied here recognizes that the development of economic systems in time and space does not result simply from 'geographic' processes like the friction of distance, but also from wider economic, political, and cultural contexts.
Dr. Robert South (Advisor)
1 p.
Geography
economic geography; cocaine; Latin America; Multinational firm; industrial geography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • ALLEN, C. M. (2002). An Industrial Geography of Cocaine [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029351158

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • ALLEN, CHRISTIAN. An Industrial Geography of Cocaine. 2002. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029351158.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • ALLEN, CHRISTIAN. "An Industrial Geography of Cocaine." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029351158

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1029351158
© 2002, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12