Progress and Punishment: A Comparative Study of Drug Decriminalization in Portugal and Spain

Abstract:

My thesis aims to discover why some European countries depenalize drug use while others increase penalties. To accomplish this, I compare legislative debates, newspaper archives, secondary source data, and expert interviews with politicians in Spain and Portugal to see why the former increased severity right before the latter decriminalized completely. I plan to demonstrate the critical leftward shift of Catholicism in Portugal following the country’s democratization process, a trend which was not matched in neighboring Spain. I then will expand on the chains of policy shifts in Spain and Portugal, respectively, showing how neutralization of religious stigma came about and allowed for an innovative policy solution in the latter.