How does involvement in the drug trade impact the behaviour of rebel groups?
Zachariah Mampilly and José Gutiérrez examined rebels' taxation practices in Colombia in their new paper, A tax like any other? Rebel taxes on narcotics and war time economic order.
Analysts suggest rebels involved with drugs turn into narcos, while rebels argue that it has no impact and it is a, “tax like any other”. We disagree with both.
Instead, by tracing the evolution of the FARC-EP's () coca taxation practices across time and space, we show how ideological and other concerns shaped the development of a novel tax system with implications for both rebel governance and wartime order. The FARC-EP's adoption of a Leninist model combined with elites' resistance to shape the nature of their tax system. In contrast to prevailing views, we argue that cocaine did have an impact on the larger “wartime economic order” but that it did not lead to a devolutionary dynamic.”
If you'd like to know more, you can download Zachariah and José's paper:
A tax like any other? Rebel taxes on narcotics and war time economic order (PDF 
, 583kb)