Peace vs. Profit: Rebel Defection and Conflict Resurgence in Colombia

• In Event: Building and Breaking Peace

Abstract

Since Colombia's landmark peace agreement with the FARC in 2016, roughly half of the territory once controlled by the group has seen a resurgence of rebel activity under dissident FARC commanders. Why? Drawing on literatures on rebel fragmentation, peace process spoilers, and material explanations for rebellion, I argue that these dissident commanders returned to arms to exploit opportunities to profit from drug production and trafficking that, ironically, were intensified by the partial success of the peace agreement. I show several lines of evidence for this argument. Among areas previously controlled by the FARC, those with cocaine production prior to the peace agreement were up to 37 percentage points more likely to see dissident factions emerge by 2020 than areas without significant production. Using soil and weather conditions to instrument for cocaine production produces similar results. Further, I use a novel measure of how critical each municipality is to drug trafficking to show that areas that are theoretically most important for drug trafficking are also more likely to see FARC resurgence. Finally, I theorize and find that competition over resources from rival armed groups weakens the relationship between cocaine production capacity and FARC resurgence. These findings highlight an important challenge for peacebuilders: in conflicts characterized by resource competition, demobilizing a rebel group may have the unintended consequence of increasing the opportunities for profit for the group's competitors and defectors.

Author

• Frank Wyer, Naval Postgraduate School