Narcotics and Societal Security in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region: A Theoretical Study from the Perspective of the Sociology of Deviance and the Copenhagen School

Abstract

This study offers a multidimensional reading of the spread of narcotic substances in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and treats the phenomenon as a structural threat to the foundations of societal security. Its central aim is to construct an integrated theoretical framework in which the concept of societal security, as formulated by the Copenhagen School, is combined with sociological theories of deviance and with the concept of social capital. The study rests on conceptual analysis and documentary reading, drawing on peer-reviewed research published between 2021 and 2026 together with official reports of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The analysis shows that the position of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region has shifted from a transit corridor towards a market of internal demand, and that this geopolitical and economic turn has moved the source of the threat from the level of border protection into the core of the social structure. Within this framework the study identifies four interconnected pathways: a normative pathway rooted in anomie and the erosion of the value system; an emotional pathway that accounts for individual motivation through general strain theory; a relational pathway drawn from social bond and social learning theory; and a structural pathway tied to the weakening of social capital. Acting together, these pathways erode the three components of societal security, namely the coherence of shared values, interpersonal trust and generational reproduction, and generate a circular process in which each crisis reproduces the others. The study concludes that a purely security-centred reading marginalises social causation, and it argues for a comprehensive national policy that joins the protection of social capital, prevention and treatment with security strategies.