Política e segurança

: o crescimento do crime organizado no México

Abstract

Drug trafficking emerged, as an illegal activity, in the early 20th century. It was first criminalized by the United States of America and then by the international community through the 1912 International Opium Convention. In the 21st century drug trafficking became a global activity able to weaken states, strengthen criminals who make massive profits daily, creating an international security problem. Faced with these challenges, states have been divided on the best way to face this threat, adopting different anti-drug trafficking policies. The case of Mexico becomes a case study in this context, given its traditional history of violence and activity linked to drugs. How can one understand the anti-drug trafficking policies that have been applied in this country over a century, and how can we evaluate their effectiveness? To answer the previous question, it is necessary to understand that the subject of International Relations, the scientific area on which this work focuses, has been developed, to a large extent, through the creation of different explanatory theories of reality, one of which is the Copenhagen School. Generically, this constructivist theory states that, because nothing is external to human interpretation, political actors are the ones who decide to consider a phenomenon as a threat or not. This means that, when faced with a certain issue, there is a huge variety of conceptions about it. In addition to being subjective, this line of thought assumes that threats tend to have a significant regional impact, since they manifest more quickly over short distances. In the light of the Copenhagen School, this study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of anti-drug trafficking policies in Mexico. This also presupposes the analysis of the behavior of its neighbors, the USA and the rest of Latin America. The main output of this study is that drug trafficking is a constructed threat, with different meanings for the intervening states. Thus, as a political consensus on the best way to combat drug trafficking cannot be reached, cooperation and mutual understanding are required to achieve this goal.

Date of Award	11 Oct 2021
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Fontes Ramos (Supervisor) & Raquel Duque (Co-Supervisor)