The drug war is a flat circle : drug prohibition as a neoliberal project
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Ejeckam, Keith Chukwuka Obinna
issued: 2021-09-08T15:41:40Z
issued: 2021
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Despite mounting evidence of neoliberalism’s failures in domains of society, economy, and ecology, neoliberal governance has grown more dominant and pervasive. Neoliberalism’s failures are matched by its capacity, both material and ideological, to inhibit or eliminate alternatives. Instead of Schumpeterian creative destruction, neoliberalism offers governance through the destructive foreclosure of alternatives. The persistence of drug prohibition shares in the broader neoliberal pattern of governance through alternative-foreclosing policy disasters, and has been instrumental in the pattern’s development. This connection is expressed in two especially prominent ways: (1) the creation and empowerment of organizations which bear material interest in continuing both the illicit drug trade and the policy of drug prohibition, and (2) the simultaneous obfuscation and reproduction of historical forms of oppression, including racial capitalism and Eurocoloniality. Consequently, attempts to challenge drug prohibition on the grounds of its failure to meet its declared objectives – improving public health and safety – fail in-part because they miss the ways drug prohibition serves broader neoliberal governance. Considering different proposals for drug policy reform, I demonstrate that effective drug policy reform necessitates contesting or uprooting the neoliberal foundations of drug prohibition.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/79668
note: THE DRUG WAR IS A FLAT CIRCLE: DRUG PROHIBITON AS A NEOLIBERAL PROJECT by KEITH CHUKWUKA OBINNA EJECKAM B.A., The University of Winnipeg, 2012 B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2018 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2021 © Keith Chukwuka Obinna Ejeckam ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: The Drug War is a Flat Circle: Drug Prohibition as a Neoliberal Project submitted by Chuka Ejeckam in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Examining Committee: Maxwell A. Cameron, Political Science, UBC Supervisor Glen Coulthard, First Nations and Indigenous Studies, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Despite mounting evidence of neoliberalism’s failures in domains of society, economy, and ecology, neoliberal governance has grown more dominant and pervasive. Neoliberalism’s failures are matched by its capacity, both material and ideological, to inhibit or eliminate alternatives. Instead of Schumpeterian creative destruction, neoliberalism offers governance through the destructive foreclosure of alternatives. The persistence of drug prohibition shares in the broader neoliberal pattern of governance through alternative-foreclosing policy disasters, and has been instrumental in the pattern’s development. This connection is expressed in two especially prominent ways: (1) the creation and empowerment of organizations which bear material interest in continuing both the illicit drug trade and the policy of drug prohibition, and (2) the simultaneous obfuscation and reproduction of historical forms of oppression, including racial capitalism and Eurocoloniality. Consequently, attempts to challenge drug prohibition…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0401940
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Cameron, Maxwell A.
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79668