Making Insurgency Work: State Expansion, Order, and Violence in Arauca (2002-­‐2010)

• In Event: Moving Forward? State Efficiency, Social Mobility, and Violence in Latin America (1970-2010)

Abstract

In recent years, international security experts have warned against the threat posed by ‘ungoverned spaces’, insofar as these swaths of territory existing beyond the control of any
central government provide natural sanctuary to insurgents, criminals, and international terrorists alike. However, when the state expands into these ‘lawless zones’ in order to pacify them, the results are hardly the same across space and time. This state expansion will often witness a reduction in violence mirrored by an improvement in stability and order. Quite frequently however, violence will increase as stability and order worsen. This variation in violence begs the following question: how and why do these levels in violence differ so dramatically in areas of close proximity?
My paper focuses on a comparative analysis of three neighbouring municipalities in north-eastern Colombia between 2002 and 2010 which served as a ‘laboratory’ for former President Álvaro Uribe’s state expansion campaign. These specific case studies exhibit the mixed results which accompany state expansion projects on a micro-level and demonstrate other characteristics – disparate armed non-state actors, a foreign military presence, and illicit cross-border networks - which are also found in contested spaces beyond the Americas. Therefore, my paper seeks to explore how state expansion into such spaces can create dramatically different results within areas of extremely close proximity. It is my belief that this reduction in violence was more a result of tacit understandings between actors over the division of space and the provision of goods than the effectiveness of state expansion in establishing order.

Author

• Charles Larratt-Smith, University of Toronto, CINEP