World Development 146 (2021) 105610 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev From criminals to citizens: The applicability of Bolivia’s community- based coca control policy to Peru ⇑ Thomas Grisaffi a, , Linda Farthing b, Kathryn Ledebur b, Maritza Paredes c, Alvaro Pastor c a The University of Reading, United Kingdom b The Andean Information Network, Bolivia c Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru article info abstract Article history: Between 2006 and 2019, Bolivia emerged as a world leader in formulating a participatory, non-violent Accepted 14 June 2021 model to gradually limit coca production in a safe and sustainable manner while simultaneously offering farmers realistic economic alternatives to coca. Our study finds that not only has this model reduced vio- lence, but it has effectively expanded social and civil rights in hitherto marginal regions. In contrast, Peru Keywords: has continued to conceptualize ‘drugs’ as a crime and security issue. This has led to U.S.-financed forced Andes crop eradication, putting the burden onto impoverished farmers, generating violence and instability. At Coca the request of farmers, the Peruvian government has made a tentative move towards implementing Cocaine one aspect of Bolivia’s community control in Peru. Could it work? We address this question by focusing Peru Bolivia on participatory development with a special emphasis on the role of local organizations and the relation- Drug Control ship between growers and the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, focus Participatory development group discussions and secondary research, we find that for community control to have any chance of suc- Agricultural unions cess in Peru, grassroots organizations must be strengthened and grower trust in the state created. The study also demonstrates that successful participatory development in drug crop regions is contingent on land titling and robust state investment, which strengthens farmer resolve to participate so as to avoid a return to the repression of the past. Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction marginalized rural areas, characterized by minimal civilian state presence, lack of secure land tenure, limited access to credit, poor Lack of opportunities, marginalization and state neglect typify infrastructure, and significant levels of poverty (Grimmelmann drug crop production worldwide. But while confronting these et al., 2017, p. 76). In most zones, coca complements subsistence issues is at the heart of economic and social development, drug farming and is one of few economic pursuits available that pro- crops are primarily conceptualized as a crime and security issue vides cash income (Grisaffi & Ledebur, 2016, p. 9). Drug policy (Alimi, 2019, p. 39). In the Andes over the past 40 years, policies makers often disregard how farmers make what is for them an eco- have prioritized the forced eradication of the coca leaf, the princi- nomically rational choice and ‘‘...see drug crop producers simply pal raw material in refined cocaine, under intense pressure from as profit-motivated criminals” (Csete et al., 2016, p. 1458). the U.S. government. This has undermined local economies, crimi- Since the mid-1980s successive U.S. governments have pro- nalized poor farmers, and triggered human rights abuses moted a militarized and prohibitionist drug control strategy, con- (Youngers & Rosin, 2005). sistently limiting any debate on alternatives. This security- The world’s main coca leaf producers are Colombia, Peru, and oriented approach has generated violence and undermined demo- Bolivia with Colombia by far the largest and Bolivia a distant third cratic practices while failing to achieve its objectives (Arias & (UNODC, 2018b, 2019a, 2020). In Peru and Colombia, as was the Grisaffi, 2021; Rodrigues & Labate, 2016).1 Eradication has not case in Bolivia until 2004, coca cultivation is concentrated in reduced coca crops, it has simply displaced them, often through widespread replanting, contributing to deforestation (Dest, 2021; ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: t.grisaffi@reading.ac.uk (T. Grisaffi), [email protected] 1 The adverse impacts of crop eradication fall disproportionately on indigenous (K. Ledebur), [email protected] (M. Paredes), [email protected] (A. communities, ethnic minorities, women and children (Burger & Kapron, 2017; Pieris, Pastor). 2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105610 0305-750X/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T. Grisaffi, L. Farthing, K. Ledebur et al. World Development 146 (2021) 105610 Reyes, 2014). Global cocaine manufacture in 2017 reached its high- and subsequently requested that the Peruvian government con- est level ever, more than double the level recorded in 2013 (UNODC, sider implementing parts of the Bolivian model in some areas of 2019b, p. 13). Peru.5 This interest echoes the OAS’s 2012 assessment of the Bolivian These outcomes have provoked a regional debate focused on model as worthy of ‘‘replication” (Briones et al., 2013, p. 6), and a supply reduction’s impact on violence, corruption, and institu- UNDP finding that ‘‘Bolivia’s experience [...] could inspire and tional instability (Collins, 2021, p. 5; GCDP, 2016, 2018; LSE inform supply-side interventions and development policies in other IDEAS, 2014).2 Against this backdrop, Bolivia has emerged as a world countries” (UNDP, 2016, p. 14). leader in promoting a previously untested, supply-side harm reduc- This article considers coca control and development strategies in tion model that is participatory and non-violent. Since 2004, growers Bolivia and Peru through the lens of participatory development with have been allowed to cultivate a restricted amount of coca leaf, reg- a particular focus on the role of local organizations and the relation- ulated by local grower unions. This program had its greatest impact ship between growers and the state. Drawing on long-term ethno- in the Chapare coca growing region east of Cochabamba where it graphic fieldwork, farmer-to-farmer workshops, interview data and received European Union funding from 2009 to 2014.3 focus group discussions in both countries, combined with secondary While the results have been uneven, we argue that not only has research, the article makes two substantive contributions. Bolivia’s model proven more effective in reducing violence by First, we tease out the unique factors that made the working to gradually limit coca production in a safe and sustain- community-based approach viable in Bolivia and why Peru is able manner, but it has expanded social and civil rights in hitherto locked into longstanding and counterproductive drug war policies. marginal regions. Government investment, combined with gender Second, we identify the multiple challenges of implementing Boli- equity policies, and the 2013 international recognition of Bolivians’ via’s approach in Peru, including the distinct organizational trajec- right to consume coca leaf domestically, have contributed to stabil- tory and identity formation of coca farmers, as well as differences ity and stimulated economic diversification away from coca in government investment and the history of prevarication by (Grisaffi et al., 2017, p. 146). Peruvian drug control authorities. Bolivia’s program has received widespread praise as a ‘‘best Questions about how to manage drug crops in a sustainable practice” from the Organization of American States (OAS) manner are more pressing than ever. While Covid-19 has led to a (Briones et al., 2013, p. 6) and the Lancet-John Hopkins Commis- short-term drop in the price of cocaine, discouraging farmers from sion on Public Health and International Drug Policy (Csete et al., planting coca, the looming economic crisis will likely push yet 2016, p. 1467). In 2019, the United Nations Development Pro- more people into the illicit coca-cocaine economy (Me et al., gramme (UNDP) reported that, ‘‘By recognizing coca cultivation 2021, pp. 21-23). as a legitimate source of income, the government has helped stabi- lize household incomes and placed farmers in a better position to assume the risk of substituting illicit crops with alternative crops 2. Participatory development, local organizations and state or livestock. The program has also played an important role in legitimacy empowering women coca growers” (UNDP, 2019, p. 9). While drug crop policy was undergoing profound change in Bolivia, Economic and social development within drug crop cultivation neighbouring Peru remained formally committed, as it has for the past zones, which is known as ‘‘alternative development” in U.S. War on 40 years, to US-designed and - until 2011 - funded, eradication-based Drugs terminology, faces the same challenges confronting any other strategies, although this has varied substantially in different regions, effort to improve rural living standards, with the added challenge of following a pattern of trial-and-error (Paredes & Pastor, 2021). Success the violence, distrust and insecurity linked to the drug trade. Fragile in reducing coca cultivation, particularly in the Alto Huallaga, resulted institutions, interventions that discount local organizations, struc- in a shift in the locus of coca cultivation to the VRAEM (an acronym for tural issues such as land tenure and short project cycles, have pla- the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro river valleys).4 gued alternative development much as they do other development Peru’s history of armed insurgency