Network Analysis of the War on Drugs in the Philippines
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/philippines-duterte-killer-drug-war-160905094258461.html
The war on drugs in the Philippines is like no other. President Rodrigo Duterte has taken an approach to fighting crime that is far from what is deemed appropriate in America. While the inner workings and decision making processes are unknown, “the government” decides if a citizen is a criminal, and if so, has him or her executed. In fact, there are 38 people being killed each day due to the war on drugs. How does the network play a role in propagating this? There are a series of nodes in the government that all have strong ties to one another. These nodes are the governing officials, who all derive power from President Rodrigo Duterte. These people act as one unit, sharing information with one another, and ultimately deciding the fate of drug dealers. These officials form a connected component due to triadic closure. If official A is connected to official B and C, but B and C aren’t connected, this will cause friction to official A. As a result, official B will connect with official C, and as a result the diversity of viewpoints and ideas in the network will be reduced.
What kind of drug dealers are being killed by the Philippine government? Are they drug lords and mass murders? Are they the people moving around massive quantities of drugs? No, they are the people at the bottom of the totem pole, the “drug addicts”. These “drug addicts” generally have a minimal amount of drugs in their possession. Maybe the drug addict has a strong ties to the drug lord, but it’s likely they have a weak tie to a mid level dealer, who has a weak tie to a higher mid level dealer, and so forth. It’s the people that are trying to pay for college or support their families that are forced into the drug ring. Once they get in, the connected component, or the government, tries to remove them from the graph.
If the government is trying to kill all of the low level drug dealers, how do new ones keep popping up. Perhaps one drug dealer has five strong ties that are also drug dealers and one strong tie that is not a drug dealer. This group of 6 drug dealers has a sense of homophily, to the point where it’s awkward for the non-drug dealer to not be a drug dealer. As a result, through homophily and triadic closure, this person will be converted into a drug dealer, thus perpetuating the cycle. While the government might believe that eliminating drug dealers at the bottom of the totem pole will win the war on drugs, the reality is that larger network effects of homophily and power information are at play.