Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Civilian Autonomy in Civil War
- 2 A Theory of Civilian Decision-Making in Civil War
- 3 The History of Conflict and Local Autonomy in Colombia
- 4 Living to Tell About It: Research in Conflict Settings
- 5 How Civilian Organizations Affect Civil War Violence
- 6 Why Some Communities Are More Organized than Others
- 7 The Institution of the ATCC: Protection through Conciliation
- 8 Discovering Civilian Autonomy in Cundinamarca
- 9 Civilian Autonomy around the World
- 10 Conclusions and Policy Implications
- Appendix A Archives Consulted
- Appendix B Supplementary Documentation on the ATCC
- Glossary
- References
- Index
3 - The History of Conflict and Local Autonomy in Colombia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2017
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Civilian Autonomy in Civil War
- 2 A Theory of Civilian Decision-Making in Civil War
- 3 The History of Conflict and Local Autonomy in Colombia
- 4 Living to Tell About It: Research in Conflict Settings
- 5 How Civilian Organizations Affect Civil War Violence
- 6 Why Some Communities Are More Organized than Others
- 7 The Institution of the ATCC: Protection through Conciliation
- 8 Discovering Civilian Autonomy in Cundinamarca
- 9 Civilian Autonomy around the World
- 10 Conclusions and Policy Implications
- Appendix A Archives Consulted
- Appendix B Supplementary Documentation on the ATCC
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
Don Apolinar Moscote (Aureliano Buendía's father-in-law): “The Liberals were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equals to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority … The Conservatives, who had received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities” (104).
Aureliano Buendía: “If I have to be something, I'll be a Liberal because the Conservatives are tricky” (106).
– Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of SolitudeThe first response you will get from an average Colombian when inquiring about the armed conflict is, “It's complicated.” And it is true. There are regional dynamics, multiple actors, changes across time, various theories and logics, and hidden narratives and subtexts. Colombia has been in a state of conflict since the early 1960s. The fighting between guerrilla, paramilitary, and government forces, with narco-traffickers thrown in the mix, has had devastating consequences for a large portion of the civilian population. Here I provide an overview of the conflict and civilian mobilizations for peace from the second half of the twentieth century through the present. This overview illustrates the breadth, timing, and regionalization of these trends.
The history shows how a variety of social mobilizations grew in response to rising levels of violence. A look back in time shows there have been various historical iterations of conflict followed by civil society responding and working to oppose violence and repair the damage. The causes of these cycles lay deeper in the country's broader social trends and political history.
Structural factors such as the illicit economy, difficult terrain, and state weakness have shaped the state's approach to the conflict and economic development, but the state's approach to governance has also been shaped by politics. A series of inconsistent choices by elites, driven by political contingencies, produced the social landscape that exists today and set the stage for civilian autonomy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Resisting WarHow Communities Protect Themselves, pp. 62 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017