Third Parties, War Systems' Inertia, and Conflict Termination: The Doomed Peace Process in Colombia, 1998-2002

This article discusses the role of third-party interventions in the failed peace process of Colombia that took place between 1998 and 2002. It analyses how both neutral and biased interventions impacted upon conflict dynamics. The article demonstrates that the neutral intervention was limited to the initiation of the peace talks and intermittent particularly in its final phase, while the biased intervention, led by the US, changed the incentive structure of the actors involved, creating hopes among the hard liners that the US could help them in winning the war. In hindsight, this biased intervention failed to tip the balance of power, but contributed to the derailment of the peace process. This article argues that third party intervention, particularly the biased intervention, failed to dismantle the war system. Instead, it has brought the Colombian war system into a phase of fluctuating stalemate, characterized by renewed volatility and violence

State-building, war and violence : evidence from Latin America

In European history, war has played a major role in state‐building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine state‐building, thus preventing the replication of European experiences. As a consequence, the main focus of the current state‐building debate is on fragility and a lack of violence control inside these states. Evidence from Latin American history shows that the specific patterns of the termination of both war and violence are more important than the specific patterns of their organization. Hence these patterns can be conceptualized as a critical juncture for state‐building. While military victories in war, the subordination of competing armed actors and the prosecution of perpetrators are conducive for state‐building, negotiated settlements, coexistence, and impunity produce instability due to competing patterns of authority, legitimacy, and social cohesion

Caudillos and the crisis of the Colombian State: Fragmented sovereignty, the war system and the privatisation of counterinsurgency in Colombia

This article examines the rise of private militias within the historical context of the crisis of the Colombian nation-state. Taking a political economy approach, the paper attempts to assess the consequences of the emergence of the United Auto Defenses of Colombia (auc) for the country\u27s political trajectory. It argues that the auc and the narco-bourgeoisie have created a new \u27reactionary class configuration\u27 that has regenerated a \u27labour-repressive\u27 mode of capital accumulation best characterised as a rentier-based political economy. Hence the counterinsurgency in Colombia is not the typical military instrument of the state, but rather an instrument for class articulation and socioeconomic and political transformation beyond the state. Although these transformations were consistent with the neoliberal economic path that the Colombian government had adopted in earnest by the late 1980s, they also deepened the political crisis of the state and accentuated \u27fragmented sovereignty\u27 and the \u27war system\u27. Finally, this article sheds light on the social class composition of the auc and on the insurgency led by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (farc), revealing the social class differences between the two main warring actors

State Capacity in Postconflict Settings: Explaining criminal violence in El Salvador and Guatemala

This article proposes a systemic approach to explore the determinants of homicides. This approach examines two interrelated factors: a) the interplay between state capacities and the opportunity costs of crime; and b) consequently, the political economy of this interplay. In this article I argue that weakened state capacities in the postconflict period inEl Salvador andGuatemala have helped in the creation of a systemic relationship interlocking states\u27 agents and criminal organizations in a modality that perpetuates high rates of homicides.Mypurpose in this article is to discern core elements of this systemic relationship, its dynamics, and political economy and to answer: what is maintaining the system?. © 2010 Taylor & Francis

Economía política e interdependencia compleja en el sistema de guerra en Siria

Duration of civil wars has been an elusive area of study particularly because of the tedious task of disentangling the interplay of actors’ agencies, incentives' structures and constraints. This article tackles Syria’s civil war that has completed its fifth year with little hope for an end any time soon. I examine a plausible cause leading to its protraction. Namely the formation of a war system, which made the costs of war less than the expected risks of peace giving the local, regional and international actors that are shouldering the costs. The war system approach combines class analysis with system-structural analysis capturing nuances and dynamics of conflict. This article is based in part based on primary sources collected by author in the Summers of 2014 and 2015 in Lebanon.La duración de las guerras civiles ha sido un área de estudio elusiva, particularmente debido a la difícil tarea de dilucidar la interacción entre el agenciamiento de los actores, las estructuras de incentivos y las restricciones a las que se enfrentan dichos actores. Este artículo aborda la guerra civil de Siria, la cual ha completado su quinto año con pocas esperanzas de una pronta finalización. Se examinó aquí una posible causa de su prolongación, a saber, la formación de un sistema de guerra que hizo que los costos de la guerra fueran menores comparados con los riesgos que se esperaban de un acuerdo de paz, dados los costos asumidos por los actores locales, regionales e internacionales. El acercamiento a estos asuntos a través del concepto de sistema de guerra combina un análisis de clase con un análisis de sistema estructural, capturando así los matices y las dinámicas del conflicto. Este artículo se basa, en fuentes primarias recolectadas por el autor durante los veranos de 2014 y 2015 en Líbano

The Political Economy and Complex Interdependency of the War System in Syria

Duration of civil wars has been an elusive area of study particularly because of the tedious task of disentangling the interplay of actors’ agencies, incentives\u27 structures and constraints. This article tackles Syria’s civil war that has completed its fifth year with little hope for an end any time soon. I examine a plausible cause leading to its protraction. Namely the formation of a war system, which made the costs of war less than the expected risks of peace giving the local, regional and international actors that are shouldering the costs. The war system approach combines class analysis with system-structural analysis capturing nuances and dynamics of conflict. This article is based in part based on primary sources collected by author in the Summers of 2014 and 2015 in Lebanon

Systems of violence: The political economy of war and peace in Colombia, Second Edition

Expanded new edition of an important study of the protracted violence in Colombia