How and why consensus fractured at the 2024 session of the UN Commission on narcotic drugs: an exploratory study of international drug policy constellations using social network analysis and qualitative comparative analysis

<p>Consensus in international drug policy has fractured. It would be useful to explain how and why this occurred.</p> <p>This exploratory study develops and tests theory and methods for describing and explaining constellations of policy actors and positions in international drug po...

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Main Author: Alex Stevens (92152) (author)
Other Authors: Felipe Krause (22788935) (author), Martin Bouchard (9097863) (author)
Published: 2025
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Summary:<p>Consensus in international drug policy has fractured. It would be useful to explain how and why this occurred.</p> <p>This exploratory study develops and tests theory and methods for describing and explaining constellations of policy actors and positions in international drug policy.</p> <p>This article applies the policy constellations approach. It uses social network analysis (SNA) of the statements made by countries at the 2024 Commission on Narcotic Drugs, combined with a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of the data on countries’ value orientations and national levels of human development.</p> <p>A network analysis of the statements made at the Commission revealed two constellations of countries in the data: the ‘liberal’ and ‘traditionalist’ constellations. In QCA, after excluding Latin American countries, we find that a population’s level of emancipative values may have a causal effect on membership of these policy constellations; countries with high emancipative values are usually in the liberal constellation, and countries with low emancipative values are usually in the traditionalist constellation.</p> <p>It is possible to use SNA and QCA to identify policy constellations in international drug policy discussions and to provide a provisional explanation of why countries (outside Latin America) adopt the policy positions they do.</p>