2025 Theses Doctoral

Essays on the Political Economy of Supply-Side Counternarcotics

Gerez, Julian E.

When, how, and why does the state choose to crack down on some forms of crime or threats to its authority but not others? What are the downstream effects of these choices? This dissertation investigates these questions through an examination of the political economy of counternarcotics enforcement in Latin America, focusing on the uneven territorial application of drug laws and the consequences of this selective enforcement for state-building, political behavior, socioeconomic development, and crime and illicit economies more broadly.

The first paper studies the geographic distribution of coca eradication via aerial fumigation in Colombia. It shows that enforcement patterns reflect variation in influence by different non-state armed groups. Municipalities with greater historical violence by armed actors aligned with the state---paramilitary groups---were relatively protected from aerial eradication after the election of a hardline president. In contrast, areas with greater historical violence by armed actors in opposition to the state---guerrilla groups---were disproportionately targeted. These patterns suggest that state consolidation is shaped by political incentives, complicating traditional narratives of incremental state-building.

The second paper explores how exposure to aerial fumigation shapes electoral behavior in rural Colombia. It finds that this coercive form of enforcement generates political backlash. Citizens affected by fumigation interpret the state's actions as punitive and unjust, rather than legitimate or neutral, in part because of the dynamics discussed in the first paper. Even as this political backlash might have the potential to affect change, the influence of non-state armed actors over enforcement decisions inhibits democratic accountability. In this way, government enforcement strategies can deepen political alienation and erode trust in democratic institutions.

The third paper, co-authored with Elena Barham, expands the analysis to Peru in addition to Colombia, investigating how counternarcotics strategies reshape the industrial organization of illicit markets. Using highly fine-grained spatial and remotely sensed data as well as qualitative interviews, it shows how state pressure in one area can generate unintended consequences in others, transforming the economic and criminal landscapes. In Peru, manual eradication displaces criminal activity rather than eliminating when groups can adapt to new territories or other illicit industries. In Colombia, forced eradication and even voluntary crop substitution programs encourage diversification into other illicit sectors like illegal mining and logging.