The political economy of the Colombian armed conflict: some hypotheses about the contrast between the banana and flower sectors
| Autor | Carlo Nasi, with the assistance of María del Pilar Lozano |
| Páginas | 81-131 |
e political economy of the
Colombian armed conict: Some
hypotheses about the contrast between
the banana and ower sectors*
C N, with the assistance of M P L
Introduction
T the political economy of armed conicts has received wide-
spread attention since the end of the Cold War. e recent debate about what
is known as “Collier’s esis” has been promoted by the World Bank (on this
subject, see Collier ; Collier, Hoeer, and Soderbom ; Collier and
Hoeer ; Collier, Hoeer, and Rohner ). While Collier and his as so-
ciates cannot be given the exclusive credit for reviving t he debate on the relation
between natural resources a nd armed conict (there are the pioneering studies
of Berdal and Keen ; Keen ; De Soysa , among others), their studies
were widely reported by the international press, in contrast w ith what happens
with many other statist ical analyses of wars (Fearon ).
Collier’s thesis, which is applicable to recent civil wars (or armed internal
conicts), maintains that, g iven the ubiquity of factors which cause grievances
in the world (like poverty and inequality) and considering that there are few
outbreaks of civil wars, it is a m istake to infer a causal relation between the t wo
aspects. at is, if so ma ny countries around the world experience poverty and
inequality but no civil war, what one must determine are the struct ures of oppor-
tunity which faci litate the creation of illegal armed groups and the occur rence
of wars in some places but not in others. For Collier and his associates, such
structures of opportunity consist of “ lootable” resources — particularly the
* To cite this chapter: http://dx.doi.org /./..
1/04/20 4:49 p.m.
different resources, different conflicts?
Map 4. Banana-growing munic ipalities of Urabá and Magdalena
Source: Drawn by Paola Luna , Cartography L aboratory, Universidad de los A ndes,
based on inform ation provided by the author s
1/04/20 4:49 p.m.
Map 5. Flower-growing region of the Savanna of Bogotá
Source: Drawn by Paola Luna , Cartography L aboratory, Universidad de los A ndes, based on infor mation provided by the author s
1/04/20 4:49 p.m.
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