State-Business Contracts and Environmental Conflict in Colombia

• In Event: Popular Mobilization and State Violence in Latin America

Abstract

The connection between business, armed conflict, and violent repression of social movements is well documented in Latin America and the global south more generally. Where businesses operate in fragile settings, they often turn to state or para-state forces to counter threats—sometimes from contention by civil society. Tacit and explicit agreements between business actors and para-state groups are well documented in both Colombia and other fragile contexts. Less attention has been paid, however, to how legal agreements between businesses and state forces impact civil society action. This paper tests this relationship empirically using a new panel dataset of convenios de fuerza y justicia signed between State agencies (the attorney general’s office, police, and military) and extractive companies in Colombia between 2004-2019 to systematically analyze connections between the details of these formal contracts and violent repression of protests and social leadership by state forces. It argues that not all agreements are equal; state forces’ willingness to engage in repression is conditioned their business partners’ structural power.

Author

• Jamie Lee Shenk, Harvard Kennedy School