State building in Colombia: getting priorities straight.

• Author: Shifter, Michael

For many Colombians, the term "state building" provokes considerable discomfort. After all, their country is in many respects highly sophisticated. It is South America's oldest democracy, has flirted only very briefly with military rule (under General Rojas Pinilla, from 1953 to 1957) and, compared to its neighbors, has political parties that have long been, and still are, reasonably coherent and effective. Colombia has also been a generally solid economic performer for decades; it was the only major country in the region that did not have to renegotiate its debt in the 1980s.

Although such accomplishments can easily be attributed to a dynamic civil society, including a relatively vigorous entrepreneurial sector, they are also an unambiguous statement on state capacity. It is hard to imagine such a record, widely recognized throughout Latin America, without minimally functioning state machinery. For Colombian sensibilities, therefore, state construction is a task better suited to countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, in the Western Hemisphere context, Haiti or perhaps even countries in Central America.

Yet, beginning in the late 1990s, Colombians were forced to confront the hard reality that, despite some impressive achievements, their state had great difficulty carrying out perhaps its most basic function: protecting its citizens. The statistics on homicides, kidnappings and violence in general were staggering. The slide into rampant lawlessness and insecurity was no doubt related to the state's weakness, inefficacy and, in some cases, even absence. The deterioration in law and order was compounded and reinforced by notable economic decline--uncharacteristic for Colombia--and social disintegration. Colombia's high level of violence had long been one of its unhappy distinctions in the Latin American context. But the disappointing economic performance, reflecting some degree of mismanagement, was something new. The combination of maladies, and their severity--expressed in the dramatic exodus of Colombians from their country--made talk of a "failed state" at least sound plausible.

Not surprisingly, when Alvaro Uribe ran for the presidency in 2002, his message of "democratic security" resonated with an electorate weary of unrelenting violence and frustrated by fruitless "peace efforts" carried out by previous governments with the country's insurgent groups. Uribe emphasized his commitment to prevent a "failed state" scenario by mobilizing the nation and bolstering the state's capacity to protect its people. Rooted in the conviction that it is necessary to have a strong state to guarantee the exercise of democracy, his notion of "democratic security" has as its first objective the "consolidation of state control throughout Colombia." (1) This would mean strengthening Colombian security forces--the military and police--and extending their presence in areas from which they had been absent, and into which lawless actors had made significant inroads. Such a change would not only provide more protection to the Colombian people; it would also apply growing pressure on Colombia's insurgent and paramilitary forces to come to the negotiating table and reach a political settlement with the government.

With a political solution in place and the conflict contained, Colombia would then be better able to move on and focus on a broader agenda of social and economic development and institutional renewal and reform. Ending violence altogether would be unrealistic, particularly in view of its persistence throughout Colombian history. But the hope was to contain such violence and help Colombia get back on its traditional track. Though previous Colombian governments--including the administration of Andres Pastrana that immediately preceded Uribe's--had made serious efforts at state strengthening and renewal, these lacked the sharp focus and strong thrust articulated by the "democratic security" message.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Before discussing President Uribe's efforts to strengthen and extend state capacity and sovereignty, respectively, it is useful to consider how Colombia came perilously close to being a "failed state." Three factors, all intertwined, came together to push Colombia to the brink of complete lawlessness.

The first was the persistence of three illegal armed groups--two insurgencies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the paramilitaries, mainly under the banner of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The FARC and the ELN were formed in the 1960s, primarily as rural-based movements. By the late 1990s, the FARC and paramilitaries in particular had grown, at least in financial and military terms, stronger than ever. In 2004, by some estimates, these groups had about 30,000 fighters between them. All three groups, to varying degrees, derive their income from the drug trade, kidnapping and other criminal activity. (2)

The second major factor that significantly contributed to the breakdown in Colombia was the penetration of illegal narcotics. Former Colombian Defense Minister Rafael Pardo has argued persuasively that the drug trade--production and trafficking--has substantially aggravated the violence. (3) It has provided the principal source of income--to the order of US $3 billion--for the violent groups, creating a spectacular imbalance between the resources and capacities of lawless groups on the one hand, and those of the Colombian state on the other.

No country has suffered more drug-related violence than Colombia; the murder of judges, journalists, union leaders and other political figures was chillingly commonplace and remains a matter of concern. As Pardo notes, in the 15 years from 1985 to 2000 "an entire ... political party," the Patriotic Union, "was eliminated ... (4) presidential candidates, 200 judges and investigators, half the Supreme Court's justices ... 151 journalists, and more than 300,000 ordinary Colombians have been murdered." Such astounding levels of violent crime, Eduardo Pizarro and Aha Marla Bejarano have argued, is one of the expressions of the "partial collapse of the [Colombian] state." (4)

The third factor that interacts with the lawless actors and drugs is simply the weakening and decay of Colombian political institutions. For Fransisco Thuomi, the state faced a "deep delegitimation crisis," evidenced by the relative lack of capacity compared with the drug industry. One of the elements of the crisis was a "very inefficient state, including a ... dysfunctional judiciary that no one trusted. The state had lost its monopoly on violence and its ability to enforce contracts and protect property rights." (5) The chronic impunity levels in the country--more than 95 percent of crimes, and 90 percent of all murders, go unpunished--are dramatic evidence of the weakness of the justice system. (6) Moreover, political parties, though traditionally quite strong in Colombia, were restrictive and failed to include key sectors of society in the political system. Over time, they have lost much of their coherence and effectiveness in aggregating societal interests, with party leaders becoming less and less responsive to a rapidly changing, increasingly mobilized society.

The weakening of state structures, coupled...