Nexus - 0704 - New Times Magazine-pages

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With globalisation and the end of the Cold War system, states’ transformations are to a large extent based on new foes— legitimation and capacities to maintain internal order and protec- basically, the drug industry and its alleged connections with tion against external threats have quickly diminished. Neoliberal organised crime, terrorism and migration. The 'red scare’ is now reforms and regional integration have only accelerated the inca- substituted by the fear of drugs and organised crime. The fight pacity of individual states to manage the interface between their —_ against this 'white scare’, however, poses for societies and states society and the rest of the world and to intervene in the distribu- many of the same opportunities, dilemmas and systemic tion of opportunities within society. contradictions as they were facing during the Cold War. In the protection of the state, internal and external security are Different from the Cold War era, which was dominated by closely related. For half a century, military-industrial elites have external security concerns, coercive powers are nowadays basical - nearly always prevailed over domestic rivals without much diffi- ly set up for safeguarding internal security. However, such divi- culty. Fear of the foreign foe has persuaded political managers sions are progressively blurred by the internationalisation of non- and the population at large to acquiesce in new efforts to match —_ military threats to internal security. As a result, the traditional and overtake the other side's armaments. divisions of labour between the police, The escalating arms race, in turn, has military, secret service and other helped to maintain conformity and obedi- . coercive state powers tend to lose nce at home, since an evident outside The War on Drugs Is their significance. Such develop- threat is, as always, the most powerful . A ments can be seen in the militarisa- social cement to humankind (MeNeil, taking over the functions of tion of the War on Drugs, in the 198238?) destablish h the Cold War in legitimising policing of external frontiers and in e vast, armed establishments that . cooperative or interventionist activi- protected the NATO and Warsaw Pact the coercive use of state ties of law enforcement agencies powers against one another, their ideo- powers to foster internal across borders. logical strife and the legitimation for soe li So, in many respects, the War on domestic control and foreign interven- order and discip ine ... Drugs is taking over the functions of tions are nowadays being supplanted by an extension of the strong arm of the law coercive use of state powers to foster in private, domestic and foreign domains. internal order and discipline, but also Today, a qualitative and quantitative shift has been brought in setting up control mechanisms to defend the state and society the Cold War in legitimising the about in the constitution and dedication of the coercive apparatus- against external threats at home and abroad. However, the inter- es of states. In public discourse, in government budgets and in the nationalisation of police cooperation and the concomitant prolifer- daily lives of many of us, we are witnessing important transfor- ation of tools to intervene in the sovereignty of individuals, peo- mations—transformations in the dominance of acclaimed threats ples and foreign countries are highly liable to decrease the (from communism to drugs, crime and foreigners), in the priority prospect of a world order in which peace, justice and freedom can given to financing for the preservation of internal order instead of | develop. This is mainly due to the uneven distribution of the external security arrangements (from the military to policing insti- powers unleashed by the International Drug Complex. tutions), and in states' demands on citizens to acquiesce to restric- One the one hand, the globalising forces of crime, monetary tions on spending power, consumer freedom, personal privacy, volatility and migration, for instance, decrease the possibilities of sovereignty and liberty in order to comply with international protecting the state and the social arrangements that support it. demands to ‘harmonise’ efforts in countering the scourge of drug The increasing overlap this brings about between internal and trafficking and other forms of criminalised activities. external security concerns is likely to lead to the formal goals of The discourse and state activities supporting these the drug war being overruled by geopolitical and economic The War on Drugs is taking over the functions of the Cold War in legitimising the coercive use of state Capitalism, Greenwood Press, Westport, + LaBrousse, Alain and Michel Koutouzis, War: The Search for a New ‘National Connecticut, 1994. 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Global Perspective, Rowman and Littlefield, 192, 1995. + Rosenau, James N., "The Relocation of 1986. + Naylor, R.T., Hot Money and the Politics of Authority in a Shrinking World", Comparative + Krlger, Henrik, The Great Heroin Coup: Debt, The Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, Politics, April 1992. Drugs, Intelligence, and International New York, 1987. Scheptycki, J.W.E., "Law Enforcement, Fascism, South End Press, Boston, 1980. Naylor, R.T., "From Cold War to Crime Justice and Democracy in the Transnational JUNE — JULY 2000 NEXUS - 29 powers to foster internal " order and discipline ...