The economic geography of North Korean drug trafficking networks

How has the involvement of the North Korean state influenced the geographic development of North Korean drug trafficking networks? In this paper, I use global value chain analysis to examine the characteristics of North Korean trade networks engaged in drug trafficking in two time periods during which state hostility toward drug trafficking varied markedly (from the early 1990s until 2005, when the central state encouraged production and trafficking, and since 2005, when North Korea cracked down on drugs). Access to a favourable institutional environment and state resources was associated with a spatial distribution of drug trafficking activities that was both territorially concentrated and territorially dispersed while the North Korean state sought to control as much of the value chain as possible. In the second period, the North Korean central state deprived many drug trafficking networks of state support, leading to networks with territorial distributions of production, distribution, and retail concentrated within both North Korea and adjacent countries, and more complex business relationships with various levels of the North Korean state, leading to a more distributed capture of value along the value chain.