Social Science Research Council

“Achieving Post-War Peace: The Internal Politics of Colombia’s Demilitarizing Rebel and Paramilitary Groups”

My dissertation seeks to explain 1) why post-war armed organizations endure, go out of business or shift to a new sector (legal politics, crime) and 2) why ex-combatants either return to violence or successfully reintegrate into civilian life. To explain this variation, Political Science offers macro-level theories and micro-level empirics, but nothing in between. A significant advance in the study of conflict and peace would come from filling this gap and theory building at the organizational level. Through in-depth analysis of demilitarization processes in Colombia, this dissertation attempts to construct such a theory. Additionally, it aims to develop a theory of post-war recruitment that treats post-conflict individuals not as independent agents, but as embedded in ex-combatant networks, which structure their decisions to demobilize. Last, it proposes to test these theories against hypotheses from the existing conflict literature that assumes semblance between pre and post war peace.

In my dissertation, I propose that an individual’s likelihood of successful reintegration depends on his/her relationship to demobilized networks and the post-conflict trajectory of his/her former armed employer. After signing a peace agreement with the government, a rebel or paramilitary organization can disappear, remain intact for subsequent (counter) insurgency, factionalize into criminal mafias or transform into a political party. This post-war trajectory is hypothesized to be a function of the country’s political and criminal geographies and the organizational assets with which the armed group transitions from war to peace (its membership, finances, civilian support base, and territorial control). 
 
To evaluate these theories, I will employ a multi-method approach including in-depth interviews of experts on each Colombian armed group, ethnographic case studies of ex-combatant networks, and content analysis of armed organizations’ records. Additionally, I will field an individual-level survey of 700 demobilized guerrillas and paramilitaries and 300 ex-combatants who have returned to arms.