Power and Social Change in Colombia; The Cauca Valley

Abstract

The Cauca Valley in southwest Colombia offers a good closeup view of social change, the power struggle at the grass roots, and rural and urban problems in a country whose size and strategic location make her future a matter of special concern to those who seek to avoid violent solutions to Latin America's social problems.Colombia would seem to have better prospects for evolutionary development than several Latin American countries with less enlightened leadership and fewer democratic traditions. But Colombia's ruling groups face formidable, sometimes seemingly insoluble economic and social problems. The economy has been wobbly for years, buffeted by fiscal crises, foreign exchange shortages, quickening inflation, and urban unemployment. Also, Colombia has suffered more than any other country in this hemisphere from a species of internal war referred to locally as the violencia.