Governing Human Life (eBook)

This book presents an analysis tracing the operation of biopolitical mode of power in the global field of drug control. Through a series of theoretically framed investigations that relate current drug control policies to the broader frame of 'vital politics,' it attends to the relationship of drug control, democracy and authoritarianism and showcases these pressures on the case of the evolution of drug policy in the Czech Republic. Then, it turns attention to the relationship of power and knowledge, with a particular focus on 'evidence-based' policy that tends to more often sustain, rather than challenge coercive and punitive drug control policies. Last but not least, it looks at how the global drug control dispositif shapes those lives on one of Europe's (internal) periphery, the Spanish Southern border. These investigations are intended to illuminate elements of the operation of the drug control dispositif and its far reaching (bio-)political effects in order to maintain and expand the space for thinking political alternatives.

Ondrej Ditrych is Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague. In his current research, inspired by continental philosophy, he explores revolution and political violence in global politics, ethnopolitics and geopolitics in Europe and Postsoviet space, and global risks.

Constanza Sánchez Avilés is Law, Policy and Human Rights Director at the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS) and Research Associate at the Global Drug Policy Observatory (UK). Her main areas of research and work are national and international drug policies, the political economy of illicit drugs and the intersection between drug control, human rights and social justice.