Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Colombia

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013).

The project addresses post-conflict reconstruction in Colombia, a country critical to US national security interests. Specifically, the research evaluates variation in grassroots reconstruction efforts across 78 post-conflict villages in the rural municipality of San Carlos, Colombia. For nearly a decade, these villages were caught on the front lines of the civil conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), and three paramilitary groups. Despite their proximity, villages experienced different types of armed occupation and violence wielded against civilians. Since the conflict subsided in this region, villages have also revealed stark variation in their reconstruction patterns. In some villages, residents have worked together to de-mine public spaces and rebuild destroyed infrastructure while other villages have not organized around reconstruction. This project seeks to delineate the causes of this variation by tracing the relationship between local conflict dynamics and subsequent local peace-building.

Intellectual Merit: This project seeks to identify the key factors behind successful peace-building and hypothesizes that dynamics during conflict are integral to post-conflict peace-building success or failure. Despite a rich body of literature on civil wars, social scientific studies have seldom focused on post-conflict settings. Extant research on post-conflict settings has failed to consider the theoretical link between conflict dynamics and post-conflict phenomena and the factors that facilitate peace. By focusing on local reconstruction activities across villages in Colombia, and implementing a comparative, theoretically driven study of the relationship between these outcomes and local conflict dynamics, this project will delineate how conflict dynamics affect reconstruction efforts through their impact on village institutional stability and social networks.

The project includes an original database compiled from archival sources and a resident survey to determine the distinct conflict dynamics in each of the 78 communities. Using the database and survey responses, quantitative analysis will uncover the relationship between the conflict dynamics and the reconstruction outcomes such as de-mining activities, exhumation of bodies, and re-integration of ex-combatants. An in-depth qualitative study of four village cases, using semi-structured interviews and historical research, will advance the understanding of reconstruction activities and trace their relationship with conflict dynamics, such as patterns of violence and forced migration.

Broader Impacts: By identifying the local factors that are critical to post-conflict reconstruction and stability, this research will help to improve future peace-building efforts. Numerous international missions have failed to establish sustainable peace because they have ignored local dynamics, both in transitions from war and in post-war environments. Understanding the roots of successful reconstruction is of strategic importance to U.S. economic and security interests in Colombia, and more broadly. The United States shares a free-trade agreement with Colombia, and Colombia is a strong partner in South America, whereas other countries are openly hostile to the United States. Therefore, the United States would like to ensure Colombia's stability and understand its internal dynamics. Additionally, political insurgencies and criminal groups have wielded similar strategies during the Colombian conflict, suggesting that insights concerning subsequent grassroots reconstruction efforts are applicable in a variety of conflict settings and countries where stability is important to U.S. national security. Project results will be shared with both policymakers and academic audiences and eventually include a book-length manuscript and several articles. The archival dataset, semi-structured interviews, and surveys will all be made freely available online.