Systems of Violence: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Colombia

by Nazih F. Richani

Overview

Expanded new edition of an important study of the protracted violence in Colombia.

This book examines the political, economic, and military factors that have contributed to thirty-seven years of protracted violent conflict in Colombia. Using four years of field research, and more than two hundred interviews, Nazih Richani examines Colombia's "war system"-the systemic interlacing relationship among actors in conflict, their respective political economy, and also the overall political economy of the system they help in creating. Several key questions are raised, including when and why do some conflicts protract, and what types of socioeconomic and political configurations make peaceful resolutions difficult to obtain? Also addressed are the lessons of other protracted conflicts, such as those found in Lebanon, Angola, and Italy. In this expanded second edition Richani contributes new chapters looking at developments in Colombia since the book's initial publication a decade ago and a look at the challenges for peace that lie ahead.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438446943
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	01/02/2014
Series:	SUNY series in Global Politics
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	370
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Nazih Richani is Associate Professor of Political Science at Kean University. He is the author of Dilemmas of Democracy and Political Parties in Sectarian Societies: The Case of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon, 1949–1996.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Prologue
Notes to Second Edition
Acknowledgments

1. The Contours and the Theory

2. Institutional Failure: Genesis of the War System

3. The Military and the Comfortable Impasse

4. Guerillas and the Impasse

5. Paramilitaries, Organized Crime, and the Dynamics of War

6. The Dominant Classes and the Prospects of Peace

7. Colombia’s Civil War in Comparative Perspective

8. Third Parties, War Systems’ Inertia, and Conflict Termination: The Doomed Peace Process in Colombia, 1998–2002

9. The War System: From Comfortable Impasse to Unstable Equilibrium, 2002–2012

10. Bastard Rentier Capitalism: The Political Economy of Organized Crime in Colombia Sicarios and Caudillos

11. Colombia’s War System in Comparative Perspective

Appendix: Selection of the Interview Population
Addendum
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SUNY series in Global Politics, List of Titles

Editorial Reviews

Richani (political science, Kean U.) examines the political, economic, and military factors that have contributed to 37 years of violent conflict in Colombia, based on four years of field research and some 200 interviews. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"This book brings a new perspective to the understanding of the endless war in Colombia. The concept of the war system, understood in terms of a detailed examination of the flow of resources in the political economy, goes a long way to make the conflict and its dynamics understandable. This is a very significant contribution." — Douglas A. Chalmers, coeditor of The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation

"One of the central debates in the world today is discerning the factors that contribute to the protraction of armed conflicts. Richani has a provocative and consistent analysis of describing and explaining the origins and dynamics of the armed conflict in Colombia. This book is original in that there is no other author who has studied the chronic war in Colombia by focusing on the economy of the war system." — Eduardo Pizarro, The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies

From the Publisher