Public policies on conflictual moral issues: The case of decriminalization of drug use in Argentina

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty first century, several governments have been developed strategies to face problems derived from illegal drugs use, alternative to the punitive approach, vindicating instead a perspective based on public health and human rights. In Argentina, the debate on decriminalization of illegal drugs consumption peaked in 2012, when several bills aimed at amending Law 23 737 on narcotics entered Congress. After several months of debate at committee stage, an agreement was reached on a project, but the incumbent Frente para la Victoria (FPV) prevented it from being discussed in the plenary. This article argues that the FPV’s decision was due to the fact that it mobilized a social actor, the Catholic Church, who competed with the ruling party for the same electorate; it attributed itself a «moral authority» on the issue of drug use and won the ownership of the problem. This qualitative analysis recovers the process-tracing technique, based on the survey of secondary sources, the analysis of data of the Argentine Panel Election Study 2015, the project «Parliamentary Elites in Latin America» (‍Alcántara, 1994-‍2011) and interviews with key informants.