The International Drug Control Regime: A Case for Regime Theory and Issue Salience

Abstract

Utilizing regime theory and the concept of issue salience, this study aims to show how the resilience of an agenda item can contribute to a change in an international security regime. The International Drug Control Regime's (IDCR) conventions and principles, rules and norms have been continuously contested over the past years. Several countries (Canada, Uruguay and some U.S. states) have moved forward with the legalisation of the recreational and medicinal use of cannabis, one of the drugs the regime has classified as 'highly dangerous', citing security, human rights and their citizen's preferences to explain their unilateral decision at the expense of the IDCR. The cannabis debate has become a salient issue in the IDCR, demonstrating patterns of change like internal contradictions, underlying structures of power and exogenous forces. This study will rely on a theoretical approach supported by a within-case historical analysis of the IDCR between 2009-2020, as well as discourse and documentary methods to assess how the salience of the cannabis debate to the regime's member-states can contribute to the possibility of a regime shift or change.