Chapter 4. Methodological framework
4.1. Research design: within-case causal process tracing
As the theoretical framework selected describes it, Uruguayan cannabis regulation is an atypical policy change. It is atypical because it was surprising to observe for the first time a country explicitly challenging the prohibitionist international drug control conventions status quo in order to deploy a regulated market in which Uruguayan residents older than 18 could buy or grow their own cannabis legally. In this way, unlike most of the criminological work centred on understanding deviance amplification in the form of increasing punitiveness, the Uruguayan case represents a unique opportunity to study why and how a behaviour ceased to be defined as a crime by law.
The literature on cannabis models is abundant, both centred on the Uruguayan case or comparing it with other designs worldwide (Boidi et al., 2015; Pardo, 2014; Montañés, 2014; Room, 2014; Kilmer et al., 2013). However, our knowledge of the social processes that made these different models possible is still relatively limited and largely descriptive. This circumstance might be explained by the methodological difficulties faced for studying political elite level populations. Identifying the overt and covert actors involved, gaining access to them as well as to the moments where policymaking is actually made, is not an easy task for researchers. Moreover, even when possible, it takes time to build
the trust necess H
qualitative case study is specifically devoted to understanding how and why cannabis was regulated in Uruguay by subsequently asking:
Who were the main actors involved in the Uruguayan cannabis reform and how they networked as advocacy coalitions?
Why was cannabis regulated in Uruguay; that is, how were the problem of illegal cannabis and the suitable political solution framed?
How did cannabis regulation come to prominence and set policy agendas?
What are the implications of these stages for the implementation of the law and, more broadly, for cannabis policymaking?
As defined by Blatter and Blume (2008), case studies are characterised by their thickness, derived from
Uruguayan cannabis regulation process (Amenta, 2009; Byrne, 2009). As a form of research, case study gains credibility by thoroughly triangulating the descriptions and interpretations of the actors involved, not just in a single stance but continuously throughout the period of study. Thus, a case researchers spending extended time on site, personally in contact with activities and operations of the case, reflecting, and revising descriptions and meanings of what is going on (Stake, 2005, p. 450). Among them, causal process tracing is a style of case study that takes the temporal validity of the causal arguments to centre stage. Thus, it aims at advancing time ordered conjectures about complex interactions between causal factors, motivations, actions and events. In this context, the relative importance of a given piece of evidence is assessed by reflecting on the necessity and sufficiency of the causal claims for inferential purposes (Mahoney, 2012; Collier, 2011). The validity of this type of research design relies largely on the possibility of studying cannabis policy- making where policy-making is made, since political actors are capable of learning from past events,
developing different rationalisations of the process experienced throughout time. Additionally, the time gap between the occurrence of the output and the different studies potentially bears some well- known memory biases, such as the distortion and telescoping effects, losing the fine grain via the passage of time (Sutton, 2010).
An important limitation of case studies regards the lack of counterfactual examples aiding to identify the role of converging local and international factors in the explanation of this legal change (Mjoset, 2009; Goertz & Mahoney, 2009; Ragin, 1987). What would have happened if Uruguayan former president Mujica did not support cannabis regulation? Or, conversely, what would have happened if Mujica was the president of another Latin American country, for example? Would cannabis still be regulated in this hypothetical case? Counterfactual thinking aids in the evaluation of how necessary or sufficient the events included in the causal narrative are. The two strategies displayed for reducing this bias related with the lack of a counterfactual example were the arrangement of interviews with international experts, especially from other Latin American countries, in order to contrast some of the conclusions arrived at with the political processes occurring in other places. Additionally, I reviewed other policy options that were available and considered by the Uruguayan parliament in the period under study to clarify the role of different types of political actors (Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007). More precisely, the legislative period under study is compounded by four parliamentary stages: first the cannabis law proposal is discussed in small C of either the upper Senadores or the
Diputados I
express their positions on the topic under question, aiding the legislators to arrive to proposals how to improve a legal framework. Since 2011, two laws regarding cannabis were presented at the lower
A U C Cannabis regulation for
its consumption D U Cannabis
monopoly for its selling A U E P I
in the Commission, the law proposal is considered at the plenary session of the chamber. Yet, the law finally approved at the plenary session of the lower chamber, on the 31 of July 2013, was a third one called Cannabis Control and ‘ law no 19172. Its consideration at the upper chamber started
P H C D y session,
becoming a new element of the Uruguayan legal system.
Along with the actual law, voted at the parliament, its regulatory framework elaborated by the Executive Power is important complementary material to understand how the new law works in the practice. The Executive Power presented the complementary regulatory framework in the following years: on recreational uses, including domestic cultivation, cannabis clubs and selling (Nº 120/014, 06/05/2014); on Industrial Hemp (Nº 372/014, 16/12/2014); on Scientific and Medical uses (Nº 46/015, 04/02/2015); and on alcohol, cannabis and other drugs consumption in work environments (Nº 128/016, 02/05/2016).
Figure 5. Cannabis legislative process
Source: own elaboration
This strategy of continuously contrasting other policy options that were available and considered by the Uruguayan parliament in the period under study provided a good opportunity to examine and
leading research
questions: Who were the actors involved and how they networked as advocacy coalitions? Why did they want to regulate cannabis? And how did they manage to set policy agendas?