Why have our drug wars failed and how might we turn things around? Ask the authors of this hardhitting expose of U.S. efforts to fight drug trafficking and abuse. In a bold analysis of a century's worth of policy failure, Drug War Politics turns on its head many familiar bromides about drug politics. It demonstrates how, instead of learning from our failures, we duplicate and reinforce them in the same flawed policies. The authors examine the "politics of denial" that has led to this catastrophic predicament and propose a basis for a realistic and desperately needed solution....

Illicit cross-border flows, such as the smuggling of drugs, migrants, weapons, toxic waste, and dirty money, are proliferating on a global scale. This underexplored, clandestine side of globalization has emerged as an increasingly important source of conflict and cooperation among nation-states, state agents, nonstate actors, and international organizations. Contrary to scholars and policymakers who claim a general erosion of state power in the face of globalization, this pathbreaking volume of original essays explores the selective nature of the stateOs retreat, persistence, and reassertion...