Bringing drugs into light: embedded governance and opium production in Myanmar’s Shan State

Instead of criminalizing the opium economy or seeing it as a natural occurrence, opium production must be acknowledged as a basis for political and economic exchanges, which either unites or divides relevant stakeholders. This study employs an analytical framework called embedded governance to analyze opium production in Shan State, Myanmar in a new light. An alternative reading reveals a tripartite interdependency between the central government, ethnic armed groups and rural poppy growers; and marks a significant contribution to existing research which is largely focused on the elite-bargaining between armed actors and the government. We demonstrate that the opium economy delivers basic services and higher income for rural households, expands business conglomerates and civil society, and provides incentives for ceasefire negotiations. Nevertheless, the opium economy is also a basis for land-grabbing, forced taxation and public health crisis arising from drug addiction.