The Political Economy of Violence: The War‐System In Colombia

Abstract

V iolence, in its criminal and political aspects, largely reflects the contradictory impulses set in motion by modernization and serves as an expression of the various dislocations social, economic, psychological and cultural which accompany that process. Violence increases when the prevailing institutions fail to mediate among the various antagonistic forces unleashed by socio-economic and political change. Colombia represents a country where violence has risen overwhelmingly in recent years, reaching extremes of both extent and duration. A phenomenon well worth scholarly attention, the subject of violence has given rise to an impressive body of literature concerned with exploring its many aspects: its causes, trajectory, and variety of manifestations (see Sanchez, 1991). However, why has violence tended not only to be maintained in Colombia, but continued to rise, in a ceaseless, ever-increasing spiral, during the 1980s and 1990s? It will be argued here that this pattern of violence has now evolved into a distinct, self-perpetuating system, with a life of its own, largely as a result of (a) the social and political contradictions generated between the 1940s and 1970s, and (b) the subsequent rise of guerrilla warfare in response.1 During the 1980s and 1990s, the war system became consolidated via expansion of its socioeconomic base: the drug trade, traffic in contraband goods, armed robberies, kidnapping for ransom, and various legal economic activities that were carried on by actors involved in the