Transforming the War on Drugs: Warriors, Victims, and Vulnerable Regions

About

Speaker: Annette Idler, Director, Global Security Programme, Pembroke College; Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford

50 years after U.S. President Nixon declared the War on Drugs, this "War" has failed to significantly reduce the scale or impact of illicit drug production and trafficking. Yet consensus on the way forward is missing from the international policy debate: some states have introduced national reforms; others continue to champion militarized approaches. Scholars and policymakers are at a crossroads. How can the international community tackle the complex causes and consequences that this war is intended to address? 

Challenging conventional thinking in defense and security sectors, in this seminar, Annette Idler will present the key insights of a new volume, Transforming the War on Drugs: Warriors, Victims and Vulnerable Regions, (Oxford University Press 2021). The book constitutes the first comprehensive and systematic effort to theoretically, conceptually, and empirically investigate the effects of the international drug control regime's interpretation of the "War on Drugs." It unpacks the dynamics behind illicit drug markets, the fluid motivations of "warriors," and the evolving consequences for "victims" of this war — the lines between warriors and victims often being blurred.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcuf-CgqzgsHNcwtJ0Vz3hVVjKJWHqj8UdO 

Contact

For more information, email the International Security Program Assistant at susan_lynch@harvard.edu.