Mapping Colombia's Counternarcotics Networks: The Rise of Latin American and Caribbean Partnerships

This paper aims to explain the emergence of an antinarcotics network operating between Colombia and several other Latin American and Caribbean countries. This paper first maps out Colombia's antinarcotics deep collaboration, using formal Social Network Analysis (SNA) and centrality measurements to identify the structural locations and evolution of Colombia's transnational joint antinarcotics operations from 2010 to 2015. Second, it explores the reasons why Colombia has engaged in an increasing number of multilateral operations at a regional level with its neighboring countries in the last years. The results illustrate that since 2015, there have been policies that embrace a growing number of multilateral operations at the regional level, despite the fact that Colombia's coordinated antinarcotics responses have so far been mostly bilateral (e.g., coordinated with the US and UK). This diversification has been promoted by multilateral regional antinarcotics agreements like AMERIPOL, whose structures are more conducive to a cooperative approach, and reflects an emergent sense among Latin American countries that drug trafficking is their shared problem and responsibility.