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The Impact of the War on Drugs on Union Density, 1973–2022

Michele I. Naples

The Review of Black Political Economy2026https://doi.org/10.1177/00346446251385478article
ABDC C
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

The War on Drugs (WoD) notoriously targeted poor people and communities, especially Black and Latinx people. Its negative impact on the formation and defense of unions has only recently been studied. This paper explores the magnitude of the WoD's role in increasing arrests and imprisonment, and its long shadow in probation and parole. It details the way it divided workers by race, and hammered the poor under the guise of fighting drugs. Incorporating unemployment and manufacturing's employment share, the paper shows that the WoD and the dramatic conservative turn it represented contributed substantially to the decline in union density.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00346446251385478

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@article{michele2026,
  title        = {{The Impact of the War on Drugs on Union Density, 1973–2022}},
  author       = {Michele I. Naples},
  journal      = {The Review of Black Political Economy},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00346446251385478},
}

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The Impact of the War on Drugs on Union Density, 1973–2022

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.