The war on drugs: how multi-stakeholder partnerships contribute to sustainable development in the Golden Triangle region

Studies on multi-stakeholder processes and cross-sector partnerships have demonstrated that multiple stakeholders across different sectors can resolve sustainable development issues when they combine their complementary resources and capacities. These studies have highlighted the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs), considering their requisite resources and capacities to implement intervention strategies. However, MNEs’ role remains largely underexplored in the context of non-state cultural regions where state governance is entirely lacking. Drawing on the findings of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Golden Triangle region near Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos borders, this study investigates how multiple stakeholders’ collective interventions transformed the illicit drug-based economy of the region into an alternative sustainable economy. The region once supplied 60% of the illicit drugs distributed worldwide, yet a series of cross-sector interventions transformed the region into a sustainable economy over the past 60 years. The findings show that the foreign subsidiaries of MNEs proactively explored the unknown region and shared knowledge with other actors, which helped participating stakeholders effectively address regional sustainable development issues. The resulting process model sheds light on MNEs’ central roles at various stages of the multi-stakeholder process, offering new insights into informal institutions and intercultural studies in the field of international business.