THE END OF THE ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA:
A MULTIPLE CAUSAL FACTOR EXPLANATION
by Pedro Valenzuela
This article attempts to explain the decision by the Colombian government
and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army
(FARC) guerrilla movement to bring to an end the longest internal armed
conﬂict in Latin America. It does so by analyzing changes in interparty,
intraparty, and contextual factors.
INTRODUCTION
After more than ﬁve decades of internal armed conﬂict and numerous
failed peace processes, the peace negotiations with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP)1
successfully
ended with the signing of a peace accord in August 2016.2
This article
identiﬁes the factors that led FARC to seek a negotiated settlement
instead of continuing the armed conﬂict. Unlike analyses that explain
the guerillas’ decision solely on the basis of the changing military correlation
of forces, this article offers a multicausal explanation that
includes internal and international political factors. Considerations
related to their willingness to abandon the armed struggle throughout
the four-year peace process and the factors that led to the successful
end of negotiations transcend the objective of the article.
A serious consideration of a negotiated solution to a seemingly
intractable conﬂict implies a dramatic change in decision-making processes,
from a routine exercise regarding the appropriate ways to pursue
the war, assign resources, or neutralize the enemy’s advances, to a
global reconsideration of the strategy.3
“Ripeness” theory suggests
that the decision to negotiate takes place when it is clear to the parties
that the armed struggle will not lead to victory and that a negotiated
solution that will allow them to achieve, at least partially, some of
PEACE & CHANGE, Vol. 43, No. 2, April 2018
© 2018 Peace History Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
205
their objectives is more beneﬁcial than the continuation of the armed
conﬂict. This is said to occur when there is a conﬂuence of objective
factors related to the military correlation of forces—mutually hurting
stalemate (although not necessarily with the same intensity for both
parties) and inability to escalate the conﬂict further, imminent defeat,
and subjective factors including recognition of the stalemate and perception
that a negotiated solution is indeed possible.4
Although accepting this general outline, this analysis is guided by
“readiness” theory, which abandons the necessary causation implicit in
ripeness theory in favor of a “multiple causal factor model” that takes
into account “environmental conditions and psychological states,” recognizes
that different parties can have different motivations to end the
conﬂict, and that variables can substitute or compensate for one another.
More importantly, it offers the possibility of examining the motive of
each side separately instead of focusing on “joint states of mind.”5
The
factors most inﬂuential in the actors’ evaluation may change, as they
change their opinion with regard to the possibility of success or failure
or the importance of one or another concrete advantage and estimate the
costs and beneﬁts of continuing the conﬂict in different ways.6
In order to understand FARC’s motivation to engage in negotiations,
this article will follow Christopher Mitchell’s analytical framework to
identify changing trends in interparty, intraparty, and contextual factors.7
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DECISION TO NEGOTIATE
Interparty Factors
The Correlation of Forces
The conﬂict underwent signiﬁcant changes over its ﬁfty-plus year
duration. While during the 1960s and 1970s it remained rather marginal
and limited to peripheral rural areas, during the 1980s it experienced a
“quantitative and qualitative leap,”8
as a consequence of FARC’s military
and political strengthening during the peace process with the Betancur
administration (1982–86). During this period, FARC extended its
presence to large parts of the national territory and brought the war
close to important economic, administrative, and political centers, and
by the end of the decade it operated in close to six hundred municipalities
and exercised signiﬁcant control in two hundred of them.9
206 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
Due to criticism by some sectors regarding the relevance of the
armed struggle, in the following decade FARC distanced itself from
the Communist Party of Colombia and promoted clandestine structures
to strengthen its political base of support.10
In addition, it
became ﬁnancially and militarily autonomous as a result of its involvement
in coal, oil, gold, cattle ranching, commercial agriculture, and
illicit crops.11
Some of its most important “fronts”12
operated in areas
of cultivation of coca and poppy, which allowed FARC to signiﬁcantly
increase its ﬁnancial resources.
Between 1991 and 1994, there was a slight reduction in attacks
against towns; a more signiﬁcant fall in the number of assaults and
attacks against installations; a sharp increase in armed contacts, terrorist
actions, and kidnappings; and a reduction in the number of
insurgents killed or captured.13
In 1994, the number of armed actions
by the guerrillas equaled or surpassed the level of the three previous
years. Despite partial success, the state’s efforts were not sufﬁciently
forceful to weaken the armed groups to the point of demanding their
surrender or reducing its options to negotiating or disappearing. During
the last twenty days of the Cesar Gaviria administration, the guerrillas
carried out an average of 17.6 actions daily, including attacks
against military garrisons, and managed to isolate some areas by hampering
transportation.14
In an attempt to consolidate strategic control in some areas with
the objective of combining rural war and urban insurrections, FARC
created “blocks” that brought together ﬁve or more “fronts,” confronted
the armed forces directly, and tried to take the war to the
cities through “Bolivarian Militias.”15
By the end of the 1990s, FARC
had sixty-ﬁve fronts, in addition to urban militias in various important
cities, and the number of combatants was estimated at between twelve
thousand and ﬁfteen thousand.16
Another important trend was FARC’s strategy of strengthening its
local power. Between 1991 and 1994, the guerrillas increased their
presence at the local level, which allowed them to take an active part
in regional development plans and the distribution of budgets and
bureaucratic posts. They also participated in the institutional political
arena by forging alliances with candidates running for mayor and governor,
city councils, and provincial assemblies.
Between the mid-1990s and the ﬁrst years of the 2000s, FARC
reached its maximum military capacity. In actions that left a high
number of military and civilian casualties and hundreds of soldiers in
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 207
captivity, it attacked military bases and police stations in various
points of the national geography and even took brieﬂy a small provincial
capital. On the other hand, it intensiﬁed the kidnapping of political
personalities and pressed for the resignation of candidates to local
elections.17
Between 1996 and 2002, including the years of the peace
process with the Pastrana administration, FARC attacks on towns
averaged sixty-two per year, in comparison with an average of thirtyseven
in the previous eight years, and the number of combats between
1996 and 2002 averaged about 380 per year.18
At the same time, sectors of the local elites, threatened by FARC’s
growing presence and capability and the relative success of Patriotic
Union19
in some regions, promoted the creation of paramilitary
groups. This counterinsurgent alliance was soon joined by an agrarian
class linked to drug trafﬁcking, interested in consolidating territorial
control.20
By 1994, the paramilitary groups operated in 317 munici-
palities,21
and by the end of the decade had signiﬁcant presence in various
regions, and presumably received military training from American
and Israeli mercenaries.22
In an effort to build a new rural order, by
1997 the majority of them came together in the Auto-Defensas Unidas
de Colombia (AUC) (Colombia’s United Self-Defense Organization),
and cooperated with the armed forces in the counterinsurgency struggle,
although most of its actions targeted civilian leftists and leaders of
social organizations.23
After the failure of the peace process in 2002, FARC escalated the
conﬂict. By the end of the year, 158 municipalities did not have police
and thirty-one mayors had been forced to abandon their towns;24
a
year later, close to 250 mayors governed from the provincial capitals
due to lack of guarantees to their security. The kidnapping of political
leaders also increased.25
As of 2003, the fortunes of war began to turn against FARC as a
consequence of changes that began in 1999: professionalization of the
army, improved intelligence gathering, adoption of a more proactive,
mobile and offensive military strategy, creation of mobile brigades with
airborne troops, strengthening of the marine infantry and the air force,
capacity for night combat, and modernization of communications.26
The government elected in 2002 set the objective of recovering
control of the national territory and guaranteed a permanent presence
of the state in all municipalities of the country. It rebuilt police stations
destroyed by the guerrillas, created the Network of Peasant Soldiers,
and increased the number of professional soldiers and mobile
208 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
brigades. By mid-2003, only 5 percent of municipalities did not have
police presence.27
An army offensive forced FARC’s rearguard in Cundinamarca
to withdraw from the area, and between 2004 and 2007
the number of combats initiated by the armed forces surpassed the
number of combats initiated by the guerrillas in twenty-eight depart-
ments.28
The number of attacks against towns was reduced to an average
of 4.5 per year between 2003 and 2012.29
On the other hand, with the objective of retaking control of the
southwestern part of the country, in February 2003, 27,000 soldiers
were deployed in areas of traditional FARC presence and important
source of ﬁnancial resources. While the United States government initially
tried to keep the antinarcotics war separate from the anti-insurgency
war, it later accepted that the confrontation with the guerrillas
could be an unintended consequence of antinarcotics operations and
ﬁnally pressed for a combination of the two wars.30
With the strengthening of the armed forces, the administrations of
Alvaro Uribe (2002–10) and Juan Manuel Santos achieved important
victories that clearly inclined the military balance in favor of the state,
forcing FARC to change its strategy. The guerrillas were forced to
withdraw from areas surrounding big cities, stopped confronting the
army directly, and began to operate in small units; the majority of
actions included the obstruction of roads, attacks against infrastructure,
extortion and kidnapping, sabotage, ambushes, control of mobility
corridors, and generation of resources.31
In a clear indication of
the changing military advantage, between 2008 and 2011 the armed
forces managed to kill three of the most important FARC leaders:
Raul Reyes, “Mono Jojoy,” and Alfonso Cano.32
Intraparty Factors
Mitchell argues that although conﬂict actors are frequently perceived
as monolithic and cohesive, the decision to bring a conﬂict to
an end is likely to produce deep cleavages within an actor, due to different
perceptions with regard to the real situation in the conﬂict, the
adversary’s intentions, the possibilities to ﬁnd a solution, the most
beneﬁcial course of action, and estimates as to how the end of the
conﬂict would affect the power of some leaders or factions.33
This
makes it necessary to reach internal consensus, strengthening those
sectors that tend to favor a negotiated solution. One problem is that
the effectiveness of the anti-insurgency campaign may yield uneven
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 209
results, affecting more severely some factions than others, which may
generate different structures of preference within an actor. If the overall
situation is not clearly unfavorable, factions least affected by the
enemy’s offensive or in process of expansion may advocate the maintenance
of the status quo.
An external observer’s evaluation of the internal situation within
FARC is not an easy task and must be estimated indirectly. Unlike the
“dispersion of command” characteristic of many rebel groups,34
FARC has many of the features that Balcells and Kalyvas35
associate
with “robust insurgencies,” especially a highly disciplined armed organization
and the centralization of authority. It is not unreasonable to
argue that despite the internal debates that undoubtedly took place, its
traditional hierarchical, centralized, and collective structure of authority
managed to keep contradictions under control, giving the peace
process at least the beneﬁt of the doubt. This is evidenced by the fact
that minority dissident factions only made public their dissatisfaction
during the ﬁnal stages of negotiations.
Contextual Factors
Public Opinion
Throughout the 1990s, an estimated ﬁfty million Colombians participated
in mobilizations against the war and in favor of a political
solution to the conﬂict.36
As a consequence of the above-mentioned
changes, as of 2009 the armed conﬂict was no longer perceived by the
population as the country’s main problem, which diminished the
momentum for these citizens’ initiatives (Figure 1).
Nevertheless, as evidenced in the following table, throughout the
ﬁrst decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century, the majority of public opinion
supported a negotiated solution. This was the case even during the
two administrations of Alvaro Uribe (2002–2010), who came to
power with the promise of defeating FARC (Figure 2).
The International Context, Military Weakness, and an “Enticing
Opportunity”
To military weakness must be added changes in the international
political context after the end of the Cold War. Although the demise
of the communist bloc undoubtedly had an impact, it did not affect
210 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
the Colombian guerrillas as immediately or deeply as it did rebel
movements elsewhere. Despite their international sympathies and
alignment, the Colombian insurgents have operated rather autonomously,
following strategies that respond to the internal situation, and
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Figure 1. Perception of the armed conﬂict as the country’s main prob-
lem.37
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Figure 2. Public support for a negotiated solution.38
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 211
were not dependent on the ﬁnancial support of foreign powers. Nevertheless,
changes closer to home had a more direct and signiﬁcant
impact. During the 1980s, the Colombian guerrillas felt as “a fundamental
component of a vast revolutionary struggle”39
as the wars in
El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru were taking place. However,
the end of the internal wars in Central America and the defeat of
the Peruvian guerrillas brought the dream of continental revolution to
an end.
As we have indicated elsewhere,40
by itself military inferiority seldom
forces automatically an actor to abandon the armed struggle. In
fact, it often becomes an incentive to persist in this course of action,
in the hope of reverting this situation and generating more favorable
conditions for negotiations. After all, as history has repeatedly shown,
the fortunes of war can turn in unexpected directions. Despite unfavorable
military trends, FARC’s options were not limited to negotiating
or disappearing. The capacity to wage irregular warfare does not
imply the ability to openly confront the ofﬁcial armed forces, and the
support of some sectors, local control in some areas, and resources at
their disposal would probably have allowed FARC to persist in the
war effort. Actors that ﬁnd themselves in conditions of military inferiority
or facing certain defeat can always ﬁnd reasons to persist in this
manner.
Although “shock theory,”41
which holds that actors are likely to
reconsider their options as a result of a high-impact event, has some
value for explaining the decision to negotiate (especially FARC’s loss of
many top leaders in the years leading to negotiations and the Army’s
consistent military effectiveness), an “impeding catastrophe” did not
seem to be a real possibility. In fact, as argued earlier, FARC was able
to adjust its strategy to survive as a classical guerrilla organization,
while asserting a continued presence and inﬂuence in some areas. What
the state managed to achieve, however, was the “strategic defeat” of the
armed struggle.
Beyond the trends in the military correlation of forces and international
isolation, there was an important political factor that motivated
FARC: the prospect of becoming disconnected from the broader
struggles of sectors it claimed to represent. FARC was unable to generate
a strong base of support in the bulk of the population and did
not manage to generate urban insurrections or to offer a political project
able to bring together different social sectors, including the middle
class. Despite the deﬁciencies of Colombian democracy, the country
212 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
did not have a “modernizing authoritarian” regime or a military dictatorship
against which different sectors could come together in a wide
opposition movement, conditions that, as Robert Dix42
pointed out,
were key to guaranteeing the rebel victories in Cuba and Nicaragua.
Surviving in these changed conditions ran the risk of condemning
FARC to “permanent rebellion or endemic political delinquency,”
where war becomes a subculture, a regular economic activity, and a
policy whose objectives are its reproduction in time.43
The peace process thus offered an “enticing opportunity”44
that
presented negotiations as a preferable alternative to the continuation
of the war. In clear contrast to its predecessor, the Santos administration’s
willingness to offer a digniﬁed way out by negotiating points
that have always been part of the rebels’ agenda and supported by
broad social sectors, instead of simply demanding the surrender of
weapons in exchange for plans of reintegration for rebel combatants,
gave FARC the opportunity to present itself as representative of the
interests of the majority of the population, advocating socioeconomic
and political reforms that, although compatible with the capitalist system
and liberal democracy, may have an impact on the socioeconomic
and political democratization on a national scale.45
This was essential
to overcoming the perception of the counterpart’s intransigence and
its reticence to consider an acceptable formula of understanding.
Previous peace processes with FARC were undertaken in the
absence of the favorable conditions suggested by “ripeness” and
“readiness” theories.46
On the other hand, the Colombian case is one
among many cases that show that the removal of the “deep causes” of
the war is not a necessary condition to bring an armed conﬂict to an
end.47
However, although the peace accord will not resolve the deep
inequalities and exclusion that prevail in the country, it opens possibilities
and provides mechanisms to begin to address them. Whether
FARC has abandoned the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and adopted a
“less rigid” ideology that combines nationalist and leftist ideas, as
some observers argue,48
or whether, despite being more ﬂexible and
less dogmatic, it continues to adhere to the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism
and the defense of socialism, as others suggest,49
is less
important than showing that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, rebel
organizations are not immune to changes in the context of the conﬂict
and that their structures of preference do not remain unchanged.
Empirical evidence suggests that although wars involving Marxist
groups tend to last longer and be more lethal, they are more likely to
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 213
end through negotiations than in rebel victory.50
It is thus not surprising
that, when confronted with attractive alternatives as a result of
lowered aspirations and recognition that maximalist objectives will
not be achieved, leaders prone to resort to warmongering rhetoric
may prove to be very ﬂexible.51
As stated in the introduction, this article has concentrated on analyzing
factors that led FARC to seriously consider a negotiated alternative
(motivation). The other factor central to readiness theory
(optimism) refers to the possibility that negotiations will produce an
acceptable agreement. As such, it is more directly related to the mechanisms
and strategies used in the peace process and is thus beyond the
scope of this article.
NOTES
1. FARC added People’s Army (EP) to its name in 1982. However, as is customary
in Colombia, in this article it is simply referred to as FARC.
2. This agreement, however, was rejected by a narrow majority of 50.21 percent
in a referendum held on October 2, 2016. The current agreement was
approved by Congress on November 24, 2016, after incorporating some of the concerns
voiced by the opponents to the initial agreement.
3. Christopher Mitchell, “Rational Models and the Ending of Wars,” Journal
of Conﬂict Resolution Vol. 27, No. 3 (1983): 495–520.
4. William Zartman, “Ripening Conﬂict, Ripe Moment, Formula, and Mediation”
in Perspectives on Negotiation: Four Case Studies and Interpretations, eds.
Diane Bendahmane and John Mcdonald (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of
Foreign Affairs, 1986), 205–227; William Zartman, “Ripeness: The Hurting Stalemate
and Beyond,” in International Conﬂict Resolution After the Cold War, eds.
Paul C. Stern and Daniel Druckman (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press,
2000), 225–250.
5. Dean Pruitt, Wither Ripeness Theory? (Fairfax, Virginia: Institute for Conﬂict
Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 2005).
6. Christopher Mitchell, “Como poner ﬁn a guerras y conﬂictos: decisiones,
racionalidad y trampas,” Revista Internacional de Ciencias Sociales Vol. 127
(1991): 35–58.
7. Christopher Mitchell, The Structure of International Conﬂict (New York:
St. Martin’s, 1981).
8. Eric Lair, “Transformaciones y ﬂuidez de la guerra en Colombia: un enfoque
militar,” in Violencias y estrategias colectivas en la region andina: Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru y Venezuela, ed. Gonzalo Sanchez and Eric Lair (Bogota:
IFEA, IEPRI, Editorial Norma, 2004), 103–143.
9. Camilo Echandıa, “Expansion territorial de las guerrillas colombianas:
geografıa, economıa y violencia,” in Reconocer la guerra para construir la paz, ed.
214 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
Malcolm Deas and Marıa V. Llorente (Bogota: CEREC, Ediciones Uniandes, Editorial
Norma 1999), 99–149.
10. Juan G. Ferro and Graciela Uribe, El orden de la guerra. Las FARC-EP:
Entre la organizacion y la polıtica (Bogota: Centro Editorial Javeriano (CEJA),
2002).
11. Alfredo Rangel, “Las FARC-EP: una Mirada actual,” in Reconocer la
guerra para construir la paz, ed. Malcolm Deas and Marıa V. Llorente (Bogota:
CEREC, Ediciones Uniandes, Editorial Norma), 21–51.
12. A front is normally composed of 100 combatants.
13. Ciro Carvajal, “Perspectivas de accion frente a la guerrilla colombiana”
(Masters thesis, School of Political Science, Pontiﬁcia Universidad Javeriana, 1994).
14. Ibid., 45.
15. Eduardo Pizarro, Una democracia asediada. Balance y perspectivas del
conﬂicto armado en Colombia (Bogota: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2004).
16. Echandıa, Expansion territorial, 120.
17. Camilo Echandıa and Eduardo Bechara, “Conducta de la guerrilla durante
el gobierno Uribe Velez: de las logicas de control territorial a las logicas de
control estrategico,” Analisis Polıtico Vol. 57 (2006): 31–54.
18. Estimates based on Grupo de Memoria Historica, ¡Basta Ya! Colombia:
Memorias de guerra y dignidad (Bogota: Centro Nacional de Memoria Historica,
2013), and Soledad Granada, Jorge Restrepo, and Andres Vargas, “El agotamiento
de la polıtica de seguridad: evolucion y transformaciones recientes en el conﬂicto
armado colombiano,” in Guerra y violencia en Colombia. Herramientas e interpretaciones,
ed. Jorge Restrepo and David Aponte (Bogota: Editorial Pontiﬁcia
Universidad Javeriana, 2009), 27–124.
19. The Patriotic Union (Union Patriotica) was a political party created during
the peace process of the Betancur administration with the objective of facilitating
a FARC transition to institutional political life. In the following years more
than 4,500 of its militants, 2 of its presidential candidates, 9 members of Congress,
11 mayors, 14 members of provincial assemblies, and 145 city council members
were systematically murdered. In just one municipality, El Castillo, 4 Patriotic
Union mayors were assassinated.
20. Alejandro Reyes, “Paramilitares en Colombia: contexto, aliados y consecuencias,”
Analisis Polıtico Vol. 12 (1991): 35–43.
21. Fernando Cubides, “Los paramilitares y su estrategia,” in Reconocer la
guerra para construir la paz, eds. Malcolm Deas and Marıa V. Llorente (Bogota:
CEREC, Ediciones Uniandes, Editorial Norma, 1999), 151–199.
22. Comision Andina de Juristas Seccional Colombiana, Nordeste antioque~no
y Magdalena Medio (Bogota: Comision Andina de Juristas, 1993).
23. Mauricio Romero, “Democratizacion polıtica y contra reforma paramilitar
en Colombia,” in Violencias y estrategias colectivas en la region andina: Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru y Venezuela, ed. Gonzalo Sanchez and Eric Lair (Bogota:
IFEA, IEPRI, Editorial Norma, 2004), 332–357.
24. Camilo Echandıa, “El ﬁn de la invulnerabilidad de las FARC. El estado
actual del conﬂicto armado en Colombia,” Nueva Sociedad Vol. 217 (1998): 4–13.
25. Pizarro, Una democracia asediada.
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 215
26. Echandıa and Bechara, Conducta de la guerrilla; Pizarro, Una democracia
asediada.
27. Pizarro, Una democracia asediada.
28. Echandıa, El ﬁn de la invulnerabilidad.
29. Estimates based on Grupo de Memoria Historica, ¡Basta Ya!
30. William LeoGrande and Kenneth Sharpe, “Two Wars or One? Drugs,
Guerrillas, and Colombia’s New Violencia,” World Policy Journal Vol. 17, No. 3
(2000): 1–11.
31. Echandıa and Bechara, Conducta de la guerrilla.
32. Two more important leaders died in those years. The legendary “Tiroﬁjo,”
founder and top commander of the organization, died of natural causes, and
Ivan Rıos, a member of the FARC Secretariat, was killed by one of his personal
guards.
33. Christopher Mitchell, Evitando da~nos: reﬂexiones sobre la ‘situacion de
madurez’ de un conﬂicto (Vizcaya: Gernika–Gogoratuz, 1996).
34. Jane Holl, “When War Doesn’t Work: Understanding the Relationship
Between the Battleﬁeld and the Negotiating Table,” in Stopping the Killing. How
Civil Wars End, ed. Roy Licklider (New York: New York University Press, 1993),
269–291.
35. Laia Balcells and Stathis Kalyvas, “Did Marxism Make a Difference?
Marxist Rebellions and National Liberation Movements” (Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.,
September 2, 2010).
36. A. Villarraga, Biblioteca de la Paz (Bogota: Fundacion Cultura
Democratica, 2013).
37. Author’s own elaboration based on Miguel Garcıa, Juan Rodrıguez-Raga,
Mitchell Seligson, and Elizabeth Zeichmeister, Cultura polıtica de la democracia en
Colombia y las Americas, 2014. Dilemas de la democracia y desconﬁanza institucional
en el marco del proceso de paz. (Bogota: Universidad de los Andes, Observatorio
de la Democracia, Centro nacional de consultorıa, LAPOP, Vanderbilt
University, 2014).
38. Author’s own elaboration based on Miguel Garcıa, Jorge Montalvo, and
Mitchell Seligson, Cultura polıtica de la democracia en Colombia, 2015. Actitudes
democraticas en zonas de consolidacion territorial (Bogota: Universidad de los
Andes, Observatorio de la Democracia, Centro nacional de consultorıa, LAPOP,
Vanderbilt University, 2015).
39. Daniel Pecaut, “Las FARC: fuentes de su longevidad y de la conservacion
de su cohesion,” Analisis Polıtico Vol. 21, No. 63 (2008): 22–50.
40. Pedro Valenzuela, “Consideraciones sobre el proceso de paz con el ELN,”
in ¿Por que negociar con el ELN?, ed. Vıctor de Currea (Bogota: Editorial Pontiﬁcia
Universidad Javeriana, 2014), 167–182.
41. Shock theory argues that actors are likely to reconsider their options as a
result of a high-impact event. Less relevant for explaining the Colombian case is
New Leaders theory, which argues that a change in leadership facilitates negotiations,
as new leaders are not responsible for previous policies or are not viewed
with as much suspicion by the adversary. Although new leaders came to occupy
commanding positions within FARC, they were already part of the top leadership
216 PEACE & CHANGE / April 2018
in its collective structure of authority. The same applies to the government side:
President Santos was the Minister of Defense during the Uribe administration, and
as such responsible for some of the most decisive military actions against FARC
and for the deaths of the FARC leaders mentioned earlier.
42. Robert Dix, “Why Revolutions Succeed and Fail,” Polity Vol. 16, No. 3
(1984): 423–446.
43. Hernando Valencia, La justicia de las armas (Bogota: Tercer Mundo,
1993), 101–102.
44. Mitchell, Evitando da~nos, 6.
45. Pedro Valenzuela, “Out of the Darkness? The Hopes for Peace in Colombia,”
in SIPRI Yearbook 2017: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security
(Stockholm: Oxford University Press, 2017), 27–36.
46. One important reason for the failure of the peace process with the Pastrana
administration (1998–2002) was that it took place at a moment of FARC’s
military ascendance and increased territorial inﬂuence, which led many observers,
and probably many FARC leaders, to view a rebel victory as a possibility. Without
the change in the military balance in favor of the state, it would probably not have
seriously considered engaging in negotiations in terms acceptable to the adversary.
47. Oliver Ramsbotham, Hugh Miall, and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary
Conﬂict Resolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999).
48. Roman Ortiz, “Insurgent Strategies in the Post-Cold War: The Case of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,” Studies in Conﬂict and Terrorism
Vol. 25 (2002): 127–143.
49. Ferro and Uribe, El orden de la guerra, 121–125.
50. Balcells and Kalyvas, “Did Marxism Make a Difference?”
51. Jeffrey Dixon, “Intervention, Capabilities, Costs, and the Outcome of
Civil Wars” (PhD diss., Rice University, 2001).
The End of the Armed Conﬂict in Colombia 217