Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:57:53.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chronicle of a Survival Foretold: How Protest Behavior Against Armed Actors Influenced Violence in the Colombian Civil War, 1988–2005

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Carlos Enrique Moreno León
Carlos Enrique Moreno León*
Affiliation:
Universidad Icesi. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the circumstances under which civilians, using protests as a mechanism, alter the strategic use of violence by armed actors (rebels and state forces). By examining the civil war in Colombia between 1988 and 2005, this study finds that combatants decrease their attacks against the population when civilians protest against the enemy. Combatants interpret such demonstrations as costly signals of loyalty. Furthermore, when insurgents are the target of the protests, insurgents increase repression against civilians as rebels get stronger. In contrast, state forces (and paramilitaries) compensate for their weakness in the area by multiplying civilian victims. Both state forces and rebels, however, are likely to decrease violence against civilians when civilians protest against both parties in contested zones. In such contexts, armed actors are likely to refrain from retaliation because any violence might drive noncombatants toward the enemy.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , Winter 2017 , pp. 3 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

abpnoticias.com. 2008. Entrevistas de Kaos en la Red y la Agencia Bolivariana de Prensa al Comandante de las FARC-EP, Raúl Reyes. http://www.cedema.org/ver.php?id=2477.Google Scholar
Aiken, Leona S., West, Stephen G. and Reno, Raymond R.. 1991. Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Akcinaroglu, Seden, and Tokdemir, Efe. 2016. To Instill Fear or Love: Terrorist Groups and the Strategy of Building Reputation. Conflict Management and Peace Science. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0738894216634292.Google Scholar
Angstrom, Jan. 2001. Toward a Tipology of Internal Armed Conflict: Synthesising a Decade of Conceptual Turmoil. Civil Wars 4, 3: 93–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjona, Ana María. 2010. Social Order in Civil Wars. Ph.D. diss., Yale University.Google Scholar
Asal, Victor, and Karl Rethemeyer, R.. 2008. The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks. Journal of Politics 70, 2: 437–49.Google Scholar
Azam, Jean-Paul, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2002. Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror? Journal of Peace Research 39, 4: 461–85.Google Scholar
Balcells, Laia. 2010. Rivalry and Revenge: Violence Against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars. International Studies Quaterly 54, 2: 291–313.Google Scholar
Bouvier, Virgina M. 2009. Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M., and Jones, Bradford S.. 2004. Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP). 2005. Panorama de derechos humanos y violencia política noche y niebla. Vol. 31. Bogotá: Editorial Códice.Google Scholar
Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP). 2008. Panorama de derechos humanos y violencia política noche y niebla. Vol. 37. Bogotá: Editorial Códice.Google Scholar
Clark, David H. 2003. Can Strategic Interaction Divert Diversionary Behavior? A Model of U.S. Conflict Propensity. Journal of Politics 65, 4: 1013–39.Google Scholar
Costalli, Stefano, and Niccolo Moro, Francesco. 2012. Ethnicity and Strategy in the Bosnian Civil War: Explanations for the Severity of Violence in Bosnian Municipalities. Journal of Peace Research 49, 6: 801–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, Sarah Zukerman. 2012. Organizational Legacies of Violence: Conditions Favoring Insurgency Onset in Colombia, 1964–1984. Journal of Peace Research 49, 3: 473–91.Google Scholar
Downes, Alexander. 2006. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: The Causes of Civilian Victimization in War. International Security 30, 4: 152–95.Google Scholar
Eck, Kristine. 2014. Coercion in Rebel Recruitment. Security Studies 23, 2: 364–98.Google Scholar
Fearon, James, and Laitin, David. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97, 1: 75–90.Google Scholar
Fjelde, Hanne, and Hultman, Lisa. 2013. Weakening the Enemy: A Disaggregated Study of Violence Against Civilians in Africa. Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, 7: 1230–57.Google Scholar
Fjelding, David, and Shortland, Anja. 2012. The Dynamics of Terror During the Peruvian Civil War. Journal of Peace Research 49, 6: 847–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez Sanín, Francisco, and Jean Wood, Elisabeth. 2014. Ideology in Civil War: Instrumental Adoption and Beyond. Journal of Peace Research 51, 2: 213–26.Google Scholar
Hancock, Landon, and Mitchell, Christopher. 2007. Zones of Peace. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Heger, Lindsay L. 2015. Votes and Violence: Pursuing Terrorism While Navigating Politics. Journal of Peace Research 52, 1: 32–45.Google Scholar
Hernández Delgado, Esperanza. 2004. Resistencia civil artesana de paz: experiencias indígenas, afrodescendientes y campesinas. Bogotá: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.Google Scholar
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 2016. People on War: Perspectives from 16 Countries. Geneva: ICRC.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge Unversity Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis, and Adam Kocher, Matthew. 2007. How “Free” Is Free Riding in Civil Wars? Violence, Insurgency, and the Collective Action Problem. World Politics 59, 2: 177–216.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis, and Adam Kocher, Matthew. 2009. The Dynamics of Violence in Vietnam: An Analysis of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES). Journal of Peace Research 46, 3: 335–55.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Oliver. 2010. Civilian Autonomy in Civil Wars. Ph.D. diss., Stanford University.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Oliver. 2013. Protecting Civilians in Civil War: The Institution of the ATCC in Colombia. Journal of Peace Research 50, 3: 351–67.Google Scholar
Long, J. Scott. 1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2009. Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, 3: 331–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mampilly, Zachariah Cherian. 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mason, T. David. 1996. Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, and the Rational Peasant. Public Choice 86, 1–2: 63–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masullo, Juan. 2015. The Power of Staying Put: Nonviolent Resistance Against Armed Groups in Colombia. Washington, DC: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.Google Scholar
Metelits, Claire. 2010. Inside Insurgency: Violence, Civilians, and Revolutionary Group Behavior. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Christopher, and Hancock, Landon. 2012. Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes. New York: Continuum International.Google Scholar
Moreno León, Carlos Enrique. 2015. Migrate, Cooperate, or Resist: The Civilians' Dilemma in the Colombian Civil War, 1998–2010. Paper prepared for the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, April 16–19.Google Scholar
Pérez, Juan Carlos. 1995. Pide un campesino de Urabá: queremos que nos dejen vivir y trabajar. El Colombiano (Medellín), June 5.Google Scholar
Restrepo, Jorge, and Spagat, Michael. 2006. Special Data Feature. The Severity of the Colombian Conflict: Cross-Country Datasets Versus New Micro-Data. Journal of Peace Research 43, 1: 99–115.Google Scholar
Ron, James. 2001. Ideology in Context: Explaining Sendero Luminoso's Tactical Escalation. Journal of Reace Research 38, 5: 569–92.Google Scholar
Shah, Saubhagya. 2008. Revolution and Reaction in the Himalayas: Cultural Resistance and the Maoist “New Regime” in Western Nepal. American Ethnologist 35, 3: 481–99.Google Scholar
Steele, Abbey. 2011. Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartado, Colombia. Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, 3: 423–45.Google Scholar
Stoll, David. 1993. Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
El Tiempo (Bogotá). 2008. CICR recibió a 4 de los turistas secuestrados en Nuquí. March 6.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2003. The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Uribe de Hincapie, María Teresa. 2009. Notas preliminares sobre resistencias de la sociedad civil en un contexto de guerras y transacciones. Estudios Políticos 29: 63–78.Google Scholar
Uribe Vélez, Álvaro. 2008. Palabras del Presidente Uribe desde Valledupar, durante la marcha contra las Farc. http://historico.presidencia.gov.co/sp/2008/febrero/04/03042008.html.Google Scholar
Valentino, Benjamin. 2014. Why We Kill: The Political Science of Political Violence Against Civilians. Annual Review of Political Science 17: 89–103.Google Scholar
Valentino, Benjamin, Huth, Paul and Balch-Lindsay, Dylan. 2004. Draining the Sea: Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare. International Organization 58, 2: 375–407.Google Scholar
Viterna, Jocelyn S. 2006. Pulled, Pushed, and Persuaded: Explaining Women's Mobilization into the Salvadoran Guerrilla Army. American Journal of Sociology 112, 1: 1–45.Google Scholar
Wickham-Crowley, Timothy. 1987. The Rise (and Sometimes Fall) of Guerrilla Governments in Latin America. Sociological Forum 2, 3: 473–99.Google Scholar
Wood, Reed M. 2014. Opportunities to Kill or Incentives to Restrain? Rebel Capabilities, the Origins of Support, and Civilian Victimization in Civil War. Conflict Management and Peace Science 31, 5: 461–80.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

León supplementary material

Supplementary Material

Download León supplementary material(File)
File 972 KB