Charting the Range of Black Politics by Michael Mitchell & David Covin

Author:Michael Mitchell & David Covin [Mitchell, Michael & Covin, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Democracy, Political Ideologies, Social Science, Political Science, Political Freedom, African American Studies, General
ISBN: 9781412849395
Google: vZVSAQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 14906566
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2012-01-15T07:01:28+00:00

Scenario One: Observability and Perfect Monitoring

First, we assume that Big State and Little State are the only two players in this game. Second, we assume that both states incur costs to interdict drugs. On average, the cost of drug interdiction is higher for Big State than it is for Little State because Big State has more land, air, and seaways to patrol: PCB ˃ PC where PCB is the patrol cost for Big State and PC is the patrol cost for Little State. Third, we make the strong assumption that drug trafficking is a phenomenon that is observable by both states. We also assume that security is a public good, since both Big and Little State benefit from it regardless of whether or not they contribute to its production. Moreover, it is assumed that drug trafficking threatens the relative security of both Big and Little State. Given its small market and lower per capita income, drug traffickers largely use Little State as a transit center to smuggle drugs into Big State where the prices for drugs are much higher than in Little State. A small portion of the drugs smuggled through Little State leaks out to Little State’s customers, but given Big State’s larger economy of scale and high per capita income, drug smugglers primarily target Big State’s richer customers.

Since security is a public good, and that relative to Little State drug trafficking, represents an asymmetrical security threat to Big State, then Little State realizes that its individual drug interdiction efforts will have little impact on the probability that security will be produced. Instead, Little State is tempted to free ride knowing that Big State will interdict and produce security. However, since drug trafficking is observable, Big State can effectively monitor Little State’s behavior at a minimal cost. Big State can, therefore, provide economic aid to Little State that is commensurate with Little State’s interdiction effort or punish Little State for lack of effort. As a result of effective monitoring, Big State can effectively discourage Little State from free riding and maximize Little State’s level of drug interdiction. We then can assume that the economic benefit accrued to Little State from cooperating with Big State is greater than Little State’s patrol cost to interdict drugs: EA ˃ PCL where EA is the economic aid Little State receives from cooperating with Big State and PCL is the patrol cost of Little State’s drug interdiction. Big State’s calculi for drug interdiction are as follows:

U(Big State) = ƒ(GB, CB)

GB = ƒ(SBB)

CB = ƒ(PCB, MC)

Little State’s calculi for drug interdiction are as follows:

U(Little State) = ƒ(GL, CL)

GL = ƒ(SBL, EA)

CL = ƒ(PCL)

where U is the expected utility for both Big and Little State, f is a functional form, and GB and GL, respectively, represent the gains for Big State and Little State from drug interdiction. CB and CL, respectively, represent the cost of drug interdiction for Big State and Little State. SBB and SBL, respectively, represent the security benefits for Big State and Little State.

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