Drug Wars and the Neoliberalization of the Space in Latin America

This paper criticizes certain representations of drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America, which discuss organized crime groups as natural State competitors and sources of instability. These representations serve to justify campaigns of political and military warfare, so called “Drug Wars”, which are deployed with the support of the United States. The article will review the existing literature on the subject, and particularly the voices that are most critical toward the official representations of “drug related violence”. By building on the existing literature, I will argue that the current conflict in Colombia and Mexico should primarily be related to the neoliberalization of the countries’ economy, and not the trafficking of drugs.