Fragmented sovereignty and the geopolitics of illicit drugs in northern Burma

The study of the relationship between illicit drugs and state formation opens new directions for empirical inquiry into modalities of sovereignty. This article investigates the process of state formation in northern Burma, a highland notorious for illicit drugs for several decades, by examining how the drug trade both lubricates the Burmese state's territorial expansion and coercive control, and undercuts its sovereignty in the highland....