Paramilitarism and Colombia's Low-Intensity Democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID3424344
AuthorsWilliam Avilés (0000-0003-1468-1719, University of Nebraska at Kearney, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume38
Issue2
Pages379-408
Publication date2006-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Latin American Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-216X • E-ISSN: 1469-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022216x06000757
OpenAlexW2171690492
LanguageEN
Citations received19

In the late 1980s and early 1990s political liberalisation, including the reduction of the military's institutional prerogatives, occurred in Colombia despite the increasing strength of an internal insurgency. Why would Colombia's national political elite weaken the institutional role of the armed forces in the context of an escalating internal war? What was the role of paramilitary groups, which were responsible for the vast majority of massacres and political violence against suspected unarmed civilians, during the 1990s? This paper argues that the elite civilian politicians who dominated the Colombian state promoted formal institutional changes, but tolerated paramilitary repression in order to counteract a strengthening guerrilla insurgency. These civilian leaders represented a modernising elite focused upon co-opting political opposition and establishing neoliberal economic reforms, thus constructing a Low-Intensity Democracy

Citizen journalism · Context (archaeology) · Democracy · Development economics · Economics · Elite · Geography · Guerrilla warfare · Insurgency · Liberalization · Opposition (politics) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Conflict, Peace, and Violence in Colombia · History and Politics in Latin America · International Relations in Latin America · Law