Who Said the Cold War is Over? The political economy of strategic conflict between Venezuela and Colombia

Abstract

The occasionally dangerous rivalry between Colombia and Venezuela can best be explained by the distinct developmental paths each has pursued since independence. Significant factors include the array of productive forces in each country (eg oil in Venezuela versus illicit drugs in Colombia), the role of geographical features in relation to social forces and state structure, the extent of institutionalised conflict-resolution mechanisms, and the localised effects of a changing world order. The epistemological aspect is key here, since both countries have strived in vain to achieve a modernist project, one that includes a stable state complete with the development of a sizeable middle class rather than populous extremes of poverty and extraordinary wealth, and the embrace of the nation-state as well as the cultivation of patriotism as the exclusive focus for political space and political identity. They have relied on an epistemic framework that emphasises binary thinking, zero-sum competition and absolutist conceptions of human nature upon which to construct political regimes. At either extreme of this 180 degree ideological spectrum the ideological battles between Colombia and Venezuela are the epitome of the infamous ‘storms in a children's paddling pool’ observed by Foucault in The Order of Things.