Tightly Packed: Disciplinary Power, the UNODC, and the Container Control Programme in Dakar

Abstract

Abstract:This article uses the lens of disciplinary power to analyze the North–South relationships in efforts to govern drug trafficking in Senegal. Disciplinary surveillance shapes the activities of anti-trafficking units through repetitive examination, correction, and persuasion. These practices produce forms of resistance to the ways in which interdiction occurs, which implicate elites in the country. The result of constant international correction, and subsidiary actor resistance, is a frustrated law enforcement team. The argument deepens the literature on police reform in Africa, acknowledging the effects of international discipline on policing agents, while maintaining that immediate political settings heavily constrain disciplinary techniques and their internalizing effects.