Working Paper No.70
Conflict, State and Decentralisation:
from social progress to an armed dispute for local control, 1974-2002
Fabio Sánchez and Mario Chacon
CEDE, Universidad de los Andes
October 2005
This paper seeks to determine the variables
that explain the armed activity of irregular groups since the mid-1970's and to
establish the possible causes of their expansion up to 2002, especially in terms
of decentralisation (understood as the increased political, budgetary and
administrative autonomy of local government). Over the past 30 years, Colombia
has experienced profound changes at an economic, social and institutional level.
Not only has the process of urbanisation been consolidated at the same time as
the participation of agriculture in GDP has fallen but the process of
decentralisation has accelerated since the mid-1980's. The paper argues
that decentralisation tuned the conflict into a dispute for local power.
This was manifested in the use of violence to gain control of public goods and
services, to influence political and electoral results of interest to he
irregular groups and to consolidate local-level territorial control.
The paper draws on new historical data on
the conflict and on new municipal economic, fiscal, social and political
information. It also makes use of new IEPRI municipal information on the
activities and actions of the different guerrilla groups (FARC, ELN, M-19) from
1974 to 1982 and on municipal databases from the Social Foundation, the National
Planning Dept and the President's Office.
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