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Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America
... Las experiencias de Guatemala y El Salvador, aunque diferentes entre sí, son valiosas por la participación de organizaciones de víctimas, las recomendaciones que emitieron las Comisiones de la Verdad sobre medidas para prevenir el desplazamiento forzado y reparar a los afectados, así como por la mediación internacional (la ONU y otros países centroamericanos) durante las negociaciones entre las partes enfrentadas (Arnson, 1999 incorporó las dinámicas migratorias de la región suramericana a la discusión -en particular Colombia como país de origen de la mayor proporción de refugiados en la región-, su implementación ha sido lenta y poco efectiva. A diferencia de la experiencia centroamericana, en el área andina (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia) la mediación internacional en los diálogos del gobierno colombiano con grupos armados al margen de la ley y la participación de terceros países en los acuerdos humanitarios con la guerrilla, ha sido difícil. ...
El propósito de este capítulo es abordar el desplazamiento forzado interno en Colombia desde una perspectiva integral, identificando las principales tendencias del fenómeno y sus causas, así como el impacto en la población directamente afectada y las respuestas institucionales en prevención, atención y reparación. Se examinan las particularidades del contexto colombiano y los retos para generar condiciones necesarias que hagan sostenible la paz a mediano y largo plazo, extrayendo elementos para una agenda pública en este sentido. Con el fin de complementar el análisis, se hace una revisión de la experiencia de otros países que experimentaron transiciones desde una situación de conflicto armado interno hacia la paz y que tuvieron que enfrentarse al desplazamiento forzado y sus efectos. El documento está dividido en tres partes. La introducción hace un análisis de los aspectos del contexto colombiano que tienen relación directa con el desplazamiento forzado y la construcción de la paz, y presenta el marco conceptual de referencia para la discusión. La segunda parte examina la situación de derechos de la población internamente desplazada en Colombia, los avances y vacíos de la política pública sobre el desplazamiento forzado y elementos de la experiencia internacional.
... After the lessons learned in previous negotiations in Latin America (Pugh 2009;Arnson 1999), the participation, accompaniment, and mediation of international actors-with clear and restricted roles-has been decisive for the negotiation process in 2012-2016, and the signing of peace between the government and the FARC-EP in 2016. The failure of the negotiations between the Pastrana government and the FARC-EP caused social distrust, exacerbated by divided public opinion and a government with sinking popularity (Semana 2012). ...
International institutions provide a structure for cooperation among states, but they also insert themselves into national and local political spaces, as conveyors and propagators of international norms in domestic spaces, “third-side” providers of good offices brokering between governments and society, and providers of resources to help address problems. The UN and the ICC played a direct role in influencing the process and outcomes of political responses to the conflict in Colombia. The UNHCR and UNDP shaped the treatment of victims, targeting of funding, and the political incentives for peace. The ICC pushed negotiators to incorporate international transitional justice norms embodied in the Rome Statute against impunity. This chapter traces the mechanisms through which these international institutions have penetrated domestic political spaces for peace in Colombia.
... The FSLN government was debilitated throughout the 1980s by a civil war that had its origins in ideological differences but was multi-class in character (Everingham 2001). The war caused 30,000 deaths and severe economic and social disruption (Arnson 1999). A Central American peace plan in 1987 helped pave the way for the end of the war two years later. ...
... The FSLN government was debilitated throughout the 1980s by a civil war that had its origins in ideological differences but was multi-class in character (Everingham, 2001). The war caused 30,000 deaths and severe economic and social disruption (Arnson, 1999). A Central American peace plan in 1987 helped pave the way for the end of the war two years later. ...
This chapter introduces Aristotle’s work on aesthetics, more specifically the text Poetics. There are aspects of Aristotle’s aesthetic covered in other works, for instance the Rhetoric and the Nicomachean Ethics. The Poetics is comparatively short and fairly simple to summarize, even though its significance and consequences are quite momentous for aesthetics as well as other disciplines. Accordingly after a general introduction to the significance of the Poetics in the context of ancient Greek life, this chapter briefly outlines its principal arguments and situates it in relation to other ideas within Aristotle’s work, before consideration of the continuing relevance of the Poetics from a contemporary perspective on organizations, society and politics.
... The FSLN government was debilitated throughout the 1980s by a civil war that had its origins in ideological differences but was multi-class in character (Everingham, 2001). The war caused 30,000 deaths and severe economic and social disruption (Arnson, 1999). A Central American peace plan in 1987 helped pave the way for the end of the war two years later. ...
As with the other texts in Aristotle’s practical philosophy, Rhetoric needs to be understood in the context of a number of his other works. Accordingly this chapter begins by situating the Rhetoric in relation to these, before summarizing and then reviewing some of the main arguments in the text. It concludes with a consideration of how Aristotle’s rhetoric has been applied by more contemporary writers on organizations, society and politics.
... The FSLN government was debilitated throughout the 1980s by a civil war that had its origins in ideological differences but was multi-class in character (Everingham, 2001). The war caused 30,000 deaths and severe economic and social disruption (Arnson, 1999). A Central American peace plan in 1987 helped pave the way for the end of the war two years later. ...
This chapter offers additional justification for, and some necessary context to, the title for this book. In doing so, it begins to discuss the nature of Aristotle’s practical philosophy and argue for its continuing relevance to the study of organization, society and politics. The chapter concludes with an outline of the remainder of the book. To begin, I want to address directly the question of how Aristotle’s work remains relevant, and in doing so to consider some of the problems with calling on a long dead philosopher.
... Although the concept of reconciliation has long been known and used in the social sciences, only over the past decade has the study of reconciliation emerged as a defined area of interest in political science and political psychology (for example, Krepon and Sevak, 1995;Asmal, Asmal, and Roberts, 1997;Lederach, 1997;Arnson, 1999a;Rothstein, 1999a). It evolved out of the recognition that there is a need to go beyond the traditional focus on conflict resolution, to expand the study of peacemaking to a macrosocietal perspective, which concerns reconciliation between society members. ...
One would notice that people and nation leaders across the world would find themselves asking forgiveness or declaring public apologies to each other for the things that they have done wrong to the other party. Aside from such measures, truth commissions- which usually entail an informal understanding between a majority group and a minority group-involve one party confessing their wrongdoings to the other party, making them immune from being prosecuted. This chapter focuses on the role of "forgiveness" in the reconciliation between states, nations, and other groups-whether or not this serves as a necessary condition for peacemaking.
... Existe una literatura amplia sobre lecciones aprendidas de docenas de procesos de paz en el mundo (Arnson, 1999;Fisas, 2010;Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, & Miall, 2011;Stedman, 2002;Wallensteen, 2010;Zartman, 1995). De forma ideal, las partes de un proceso deberían asimilar qué estrategias u opciones han funcionado y cuáles no en otras partes, y usar la información de casos exitosos y fracasados de manera creativa para generar nuevas alternativas de solución en la mesa de negociación. ...
This article argues that agendas of negotiation in peace processes are good indicators for the presence of factors that lead to success in the attempt of bringing armed conflicts to an end. While literature suggests a series of psychological and contextual elements that may help explain the outcome of a peace process, this article demonstrates the usefulness of incorporating the agendas as part of a systematic study. Hence, it presents results of the analysis of 83 peace processes developed between 1989 and 2012, describing the technical and political topics discussed by the parties and identifying trends in terms of times, geography, nature of the conflict, and outcomes. Finally, the paper shows that discussion of topics such as transformation of rebel organizations into political parties, or their integration into the national armed forces, are related to a higher probability of success in the process.
... The FSLN government was debilitated throughout the 1980s by a civil war that had its origins in ideological differences but was multi-class in character (Everingham, 2001). The war caused 30,000 deaths and severe economic and social disruption (Arnson, 1999). A Central American peace plan in 1987 helped pave the way for the end of the war two years later. ...
This paper outlines an approach to teaching business school undergraduates about fundamental change in the distribution of power, or revolution under capitalism. This is based on a comparative analysis of three film extracts from: Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Strike (1925); and Billy Elliot (2000). Similarities and contrasts across these extracts can help students appreciate different theoretical perspectives on power and collective resistance to capitalism. These extracts introduce undergraduates to a central distinction in critique of capitalism - between a Marxist account of revolution (class consciousness is sufficient for successful revolution), and a Marxist-Leninist account (revolutions must be led). Following a well established tradition of connecting Marx's ideas to Aristotle, the paper outlines how this approach is underpinned by a theory of aesthetic engagement based on Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, or different ways of knowing. Comparative analysis of these films is proposed as a way to overcome two barriers to learning about these fundamental ideas in social science: the institutionalized, managerialist logic of business schools under capitalism; and the lack of experience of collectivism among business school undergraduates.
... These tasks are not implemented at the moment of signature of a peace agreement, but take time and, frequently, renegotiation of terms. Each of these peace process tasks has begun generating signifi cant theoretical and policy-oriented literature (Zartman, 2007;Darby and Mac Ginty, 2008;Stedman, Rothchild, and Cousens, 2002;Arnson, 1999Arnson, , 2012. ...
... Existe una literatura amplia sobre lecciones aprendidas de docenas de procesos de paz en el mundo (Arnson, 1999;Fisas, 2010;Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, & Miall, 2011;Stedman, 2002;Wallensteen, 2010;Zartman, 1995). De forma ideal, las partes de un proceso deberían asimilar qué estrategias u opciones han funcionado y cuáles no en otras partes, y usar la información de casos exitosos y fracasados de manera creativa para generar nuevas alternativas de solución en la mesa de negociación. ...
This article argues that agendas of negotiation in peace processes are good indicators for the presence of factors that lead to success in the attempt of bringing armed conflicts to an end. While literature suggests a series of psychological and contextual elements that may help explain the outcome of a peace process, this article demonstrates the usefulness of incorporating the agendas as part of a systematic study. Hence, it presents results of the analysis of 83 peace processes developed between 1989 and 2012, describing the technical and political topics discussed by the parties and identifying trends in terms of times, geography, nature of the conflict, and outcomes. Finally, the paper shows that discussion of topics such as transformation of rebel organizations into political parties, or their integration into the national armed forces, are related to a higher probability of success in the process.
Este artículo sostiene que las agendas de negociación de los procesos de paz son un indicador útil de la presencia o ausencia de factores que inducen al éxito en el intento de poner fin a un conflicto armado interno. Mientras la literatura propone algunos elementos psicológicos individuales y de contexto que pueden ayudar a explicar el resultado de un proceso de paz, este artículo muestra la utilidad de incorporar las agendas como elemento de estudio sistemático. Para ello, presenta el resultado del análisis de 83 procesos de paz desarrollados entre 1989 y 2012, en el que se describen los temas técnicos y políticos discutidos entre las partes, y sus tendencias según el tiempo de negociación, la geografía, la naturaleza del conflicto y su resultado. Al final, el artículo muestra que la discusión en la mesa de negociación de temas como conversión de fuerzas ilegales en partidos políticos, o su integración a las fuerzas armadas, está relacionada con una mayor probabilidad de éxito del proceso.
El presente artículo realiza en un primer momento una descripción de los eventos que contribuyeron a la configuración del conflicto armado en El Salvador a lo largo del siglo xx. De igual forma se analizan tanto la construcción del proceso de paz así como el periodo de posconflicto. Posteriormente se hace un esbozo de la situación colombiana alrededor de los diversos esfuerzos por llegar a la paz, por medio de un acuerdo entre el Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional y el Gobierno salvadoreño. Finalmente, se hace un análisis prospectivo y comparativo apoyándonos en los aportes y las múltiples experiencias del caso salvadoreño, a partir de entrevistas con Salvador Samayoa, representante del Frente en las negociaciones y Óscar Santamaría, representante del Gobierno Cristiani. La experiencia del país centroamericano ofrece un número significativo de enseñanzas que Colombia debería tener muy en cuenta. De allí la importancia de tener presente todas las etapas vividas por El Salvador y de esa forma apreciar la aplicabilidad al caso colombiano partiendo del principio de que la paz es un punto de partida antes que ser un punto de llegada. Entendiendo igualmente que la paz se construye y en esa construcción participan todas las fuerzas sociales de la nación.
Revisión sobre la definición del terrorismo como base para una comprensión sobre las complejidades que el propio termino contiene y sobre los escenarios sobre lucha contra el terrorismo a nivel internacional.
El segundo elemento de análisis tiene que ver con la relación existente entre la lucha contra el terrorismo y los derechos humanos, subrayando y analizando la relación entre los dos elementos un ambiente complejo.
El libro es el producto de la segunda fase del proyecto de investi-gación “Experiencias de paz: lecciones aprendidas para Colom-bia”, desarrollado por el Observatorio de Construcción de Paz de la Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, cuyo principal propósito fue identificar enseñanzas para el momento político que vive Colombia, con base en una metodología comparati-va. Se buscó indagar cómo Colombia podrá aprender de países que han vivido procesos análogos de transición de la guerra a la paz, tanto en términos de elementos positivos, potencialmente aplicables en el caso colombiano, como de errores a evitar. Por otro lado, pretendió analizar los acuerdos de paz anteriormente firmados con grupos guerrilleros y paramilitares colombianos, con el ánimo de contrastar los retos políticos, jurídicos y sociales que se vivieron en esos momentos con el presente escenario, así como identificar las lecciones aprendidas de dichos procesos.
There are many scholarly works focusing on organized crime and violence in Latin America. Scholars have shown empirically that tough on crime strategies have had collateral damages and have not been effective. By conducting logistic regression models using individual country survey data, this work seeks to analyze why tough on crime policies remain popular in some Latin American countries despite the decades of research criticizing these strategies. This article explores the cases of Colombia and Brazil, which have long histories of gang activity, organized crime, and violence. These countries also have elected presidential candidates who campaigned on iron fist strategies.
Wraz z końcem zimnej wojny, w Stanach Zjednoczonych rozpoczęła się intensywna debata nad definicją bezpieczeństwa narodowego. Uczeni, analitycy i decydenci poszukiwali jasnego określenia, w jaki sposób naród powinien pojmować nowy stan rzeczy w systemie międzynarodowym. Zrozumienie nowej sytuacji było konieczne jako punkt wyjścia do rozsądnej dyskusji nad tym, jak zdefiniować bezpieczeństwo narodowe oraz wyznaczyć stosowną dlań rolę w świecie po zimnej wojnie. Z kolei dyskusja była konieczna zanim pojawiła się możliwość podjęcia jawnych decyzji o profilu sił zbrojnych kraju, ich liczebności oraz wielkości przeznaczonych nakładów, także dla wypełnienia ich misji.
How does land reform impact civil conflict? This article examines this question in the prominent case of Peru by leveraging original data on all land expropriations under military rule from 1969 to 1980 and event‐level data from the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission on rural killings during Peru's internal conflict from 1980 to 2000. Using a geographic regression discontinuity design that takes advantage of Peru's regional approach to land reform through zones that did not entirely map onto major preexisting administrative boundaries, I find that greater land reform dampened subsequent conflict. Districts in core areas of land reform zones that received intense land reform witnessed less conflict relative to comparable districts in adjacent peripheral areas where less land reform occurred. Further tests suggest that land reform mitigated conflict by facilitating counterinsurgency and intelligence gathering, building local organizational capacity later used to deter violence, undercutting the Marxist left, and increasing opportunity costs to supporting armed groups.
En enero de 1992 los miembros de la guerrilla salvadoreña del FMLN firman un acuerdo de paz con el gobierno de dicho país. Llegar a este acuerdo demandó un camino por demás complejo y resistido. Este artículo pretende hacer un análisis detallado de ese proceso que se ha convertido en un ejemplo para América Latina y en especial para Colombia. En sus páginas se analiza –a través de herramientas de historia oral y narrativas de algunos de sus protagonistas– los escenarios de la guerra civil previa a las negociaciones y se profundiza en detalle la mayoría de los aspectos políticos y militares que implicó la negociación de la paz.
This chapter explores El Salvador’s two distinct discursive scaffoldings. Conservatives hail forgetting as the best way to achieve peace. This is El Salvador’s dominant discourse and it faces off against the human rights community’s truth-focused discourse. A crucial element in the development of how public discussions about the past are framed is the Salvadoran Truth Commission. Conservatives supported the Truth Commission’s work in preventing repetition until it became clear that the Commission would condemn the military for gross human rights violations. Conservatives then quickly passed an Amnesty Law and have promoted the work forgetting does ever since, and especially whenever the Amnesty Law, and so the forgetting it promotes, are challenged.
Chapter Two focuses on the period immediately following the 29 December 1996 signing of the Peace Accords and looks at how especially conservative politicians and former members of the military pushed for forgetting without actually saying the word, and then vocally denied that this was what they were doing. This chapter explores the struggle that exists in Guatemala between memory and forgetting, and the discursive tools conservatives who support forgetting use in an environment where memory dominates. These tools include speaking of amnesty, perdón (pardon or forgiveness), and reconciliation. The chapter also highlights the importance of the speaker’s ideology and past actions when trying to understand what they really mean when they say these words.
La transición de la guerra a la paz puede conllevar un cambio en el centro de gravedad de la violencia hacia microespacios deprimidos de las ciudades que constituyen lo que se puede denominar, adaptando el concepto de Guillermo O’Donnell, zonas marrones urbanas. Las situaciones de postconflicto altamente violento y las de alta violencia societal, que corresponden al tipo de casos que se pueden caracterizar como casos de paz violenta, requieren un enfoque de seguridad ciudadana urbana que vaya en sintonía con el giro local que se ha dado en las aproximaciones críticas de la construcción de paz.
La transición de la guerra a la paz puede conllevar un cambio en el centro de gravedad de la
violencia hacia microespacios deprimidos de las ciudades que constituyen lo que se puede denominar, adaptando el concepto de Guillermo O’Donnell, zonas marrones urbanas. Las
situaciones de postconflicto altamente violento y las de alta violencia societal, que
corresponden al tipo de casos que se pueden caracterizar como casos de paz violenta,
requieren un enfoque de seguridad ciudadana urbana que vaya en sintonía con el giro local
que se ha dado en las aproximaciones críticas de la construcción de paz.
This chapter suggests an alternative to purely quantitative studies of violence in Latin America based on statistics and death counts, instead positing that historical arguments play an important role in our understanding of the development and occurrence of violence in the region. The authors contest the notion that violence is entirely new or an ahistorical social fact that emerges arbitrarily. Rather, the contributions to this volume take selected historical arguments into closer consideration to examine the embeddedness of today’s “new violence” in a broader flow of history. The historical processes under which today’s violence evolves, the authors argue, can serve as a powerful tool for current individuals and groups to engage in social actions. But uncovering these processes also entails various conceptual challenges for contemporary researchers, which are laid out and discussed in detail in this chapter.
According to the liberal peace-building paradigm the termination of war is a window of opportunity for fundamental change. Central America has been one of the first laboratories of international policies promoting the threefold transformation process of pacification, democratization and economic liberalization. Although none of the postwar countries (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala) slipped back into war, serious deficits abound that can neither be explained as mere consequences of war nor as ‘normal’ developmental problems. The paper introduces an analytical framework locating these problems at the intersection between external influences, societal foundations, consequences of war and violence as well as peace-building. The comparative analysis of the three transformation processes – democratization, market economy and pacification – shows how path dependent patterns remain dominant while reform processes are fragile. This allows for an explanation of common features as well as differences inside the region. Resumen: ¿Por qué es tan difícil la construcción de una paz liberal? Algunas lecciones de América CentralDe acuerdo al paradigma liberal sobre la construcción de la paz, el fin de una guerra abre un abanico de oportunidades para introducir cambios fundamentales. América Central fue uno de los primeros laboratorios donde se aplicaron políticas internacionales que fomentaban el triple proceso de transformación compuesto por la pacificación, la democratización y la liberalización económica. Aunque ninguna de las sociedades de posguerra (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala) volvió a recaer en ella, abundan graves deficiencias que no se pueden explicar ni como meras consecuencias del conflicto ni como problemas ‘normales’ de países en desarrollo. El artículo define un marco analítico que localiza estos problemas en la intersección de influencias externas, bases sociales, consecuencias de la guerra y violencia así como en los procesos de paz. El análisis comparativo de la triple transformación – democratización, economía del mercado y pacificación – muestra la supeditación de los frágiles procesos de reforma a los modelos tradicionales de desarrollo. Esta perspectiva también permite explicar los rasgos comunes y diferencias dentro de la región.
The insistence of the return of violence in countries where the UN has intervened to promote peace has fuelled a debate about the effectiveness of international instruments for conflict resolution. This article reflects on the progress that these instruments were having in response to the recurrence of violence in light of what has been an approach to the concept of positive peace of Johan Galtung. From two case studies (Guatemala and Haiti) marked by changes in the discourse and practice of the United Nations that this approach inspired, it is argued that the UN instruments for peace would be so much more effective when they respect the author’s proposal, not only with regard to results they intend to achieve, but also in the way positive peace is operationalised on the ground. Analyses – as difficulties in implementing more comprehensive, local and inclusive processes that would affect the promotion of more sustainable peace – also contaminate the mechanisms used to assess their effectiveness.
El conflicto armado de El Salvador terminó en 1992 por un acuerdo negociado entre el gobierno de la Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) y la guerrilla del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), después de doce años de guerra, 80 000 víctimas y casi un millón de desplazados. El acuerdo estableció el fin de las hostilidades armadas, la reducción del tamaño del ejército, la creación de una Comisión de la Verdad, así como reformas institucionales sobre la justicia y la organización electoral. Para la guerrilla, la paz significó su desmovilización, medidas de reinserción para sus integrantes y la legalización del FMLN como partido político. Esta última dimensión tiene un aspecto particular: es al mismo tiempo la conclusión lógica del acuerdo, teniendo en cuenta que éste pretende resolver un conflicto armado de naturaleza política, y por otra la dimensión la menos desarrollada del acuerdo. En este acuerdo, como en muchos otros de resolución de conflictos armados internos, la transformación de la guerrilla en partido político es considerado como un proceso natural, que se tiene que realizar sin incentivos específicos.
This article argues that Northern Ireland's perpetual' peace process needs to be examined in the context of the events at the time. There is a tendency in some of the literature to read the result of the peace process back into its origins and development. Such accounts have misinterpreted the reasons for the emergence of the peace process and have criticised the actions of parties based on interpretations that could not have been made confidently at the time. Drawing on path dependency literature, this article employs process tracing to illustrate that the peace process of today is fundamentally different in both focus and purpose from the variant that existed in the early 1990s. The trajectory of the peace process and its outcome are comprehensible only if the objectives of the parties to the conflict are identified and the ways in which they altered over the period evaluated. The fundamental changes in the politics of Northern Ireland during the peace process led to the parties eventually accepting outcomes that many of them appeared to be categorically unwilling to countenance in earlier phases. This article examines and explains how the peace process resulted in the Democratic Unionist Party-Sinn Fein-led power-sharing government.
In conflict studies, identity has been posited as an explanatory factor of the resilience of insurgencies. This article focuses on the identity formation of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a leftist insurgency group in Colombia. As a Marxist–Leninist organisation, the ELN aims to overcome capitalism. In their perception, this is possible via the transformation of the individual into a ‘collective personality’. Along the dimensions of ‘content’ and ‘contestation’, we will demonstrate the mechanisms they impose for such identity formation. Identity, as we will argue, is a main factor in explaining why people participate in this insurgency and thereby enhance its resilience.
The Special Issue of LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES presents articles on truth, reconciliation and justice efforts, trials of people involved with violence, torture, abductions, murders, and disappearances have been (re)opened, and new interpretations and questions about what happened in civil wars in Latin America. The article by Lessa and Levey, 'From Blanket Impunity to Judicial Opening(s): H.I.J.O.S. and Memory Making in Post-dictatorship Argentina (2005?2012),' complements Kaiser's in that it focuses on the renewed activism of one of the key human rights organizations, H.I.J.O.S. (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence), in connection with the reopening of trials in Argentina. Hiner and AzoÁcar uncover the controversial effects of applying a reconciliatory strategic framing beyond the human rights violations of the military regime: while the public/private, political/apolitical divides are in practice nonexistent, they continue to be dogmatically conceptualized as real. In Sutton's 'Collective Memory and the Language of Human Rights: Attitudes toward Torture in Contemporary Argentina', the author calls for the acknowledgment of the contradictory dynamics of democratic human rights frameworks, in which rhetorically, she points out, there is no way of justifying the use of torture as a tool of political control but practically, both factual and ideological exceptions are constantly being made.
From margins of democracy: 22 years of election process in Guatemala
The guatemalan democratization encounters many paradoxes and dilemmas as the last general elections of 2007 reveal undoubtedly, the transition from an authoritarian government legitimated by elections of sorts to a more open and plural government, contributed to the pacification of political life after 36 years of internal wars. However, the consequences of these elections are limited by many continuities, among which a large abstention, an atomization and a heightened personalization of the partisan offer, and an unusual volatility of vote. These elements, which seem to create a real election headache, set out some coherence when they are observed on a local scale but structured and integrated dynamics currently miss them at the national level. So, what are the elections used for? Would they succeed in a democratic way in the absence of a constitutional state, with no legitimated and shaky institutions, with a system of confused parties and with a passive, depoliticized and demobilized, inconsistent and incomplete citizenship?
After 36 years of mostly authoritarian rule and often bitter civil conflict in Guatemala, the December 1996 Peace Accords prepared the ground for a new phase of reconstruction, democratisation and social and institutional reform. Prior to the Peace Accords, policing in Guatemala had been often violent, repressive and subordinated to the counterinsurgency logic of the military. Security sector reform intentions included the abolition of existing police forces and the creation of a new National Civil Police (PNC). The PNC was meant to give substance to a new way of policing in tune with the building of democratic governance and effective law enforcement. This paper examines the general background of the reforms, discusses the limitations of the results so far, and takes a particular and critical look at one of the key components of the police reform: the recruitment and training of PNC aspirants, using the case of the 1999 Fifth Promotion that entered the Academy of the PNC.
This article presents a cross-country comparison of the intensity of revolutionary terrorism in the developed world after the wave of mobilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some countries were hit much more severely than others by this type of violence. The article tries to account for this variation with a new dataset of fatalities in 23 countries, for the period 1970—2000, based on local sources in six different languages. This dataset corrects in part the problems of underreporting that Jan Oskar Engene’s TWEED dataset suffers from. The dependent variable is a novel index of the intensity of terrorism that combines the number of fatalities and the number of years in which the terrorist organization has killed people. The unit of analysis is the country in the whole period. Six broad hypotheses about the influence of economic development, social change, mobilization, welfare provision, population and political factors are tested in the article. The statistical results show that three variables are almost sufficient to explain variance: past dictatorship, high population and strong communist parties. Given that past dictatorship is the most important variable, three different mechanisms by which to understand its effect are suggested: the role of repression in countries with past political instability; dictatorship as a proxy for polarization; and past breakdowns as an indicator of the chances of overthrowing the system.
‘Public interest’ (synonymous here with ‘common good’ and ‘public good’) is a central concept in public administration. In an important, basic sense, we evaluate the effectiveness of governments in terms of whether their policies are detrimental to, or benefit, public interest. However there are problems operationalizing public interest: it seems a concept that is simultaneously indispensable yet vague. While difficulties operationalizing public interest are widely understood, a further problem is insufficiently acknowledged. This is that many features underpinning public interest (a tradition of citizenship, stable government, a rule of law, basic infrastructures) are taken for granted in established democracies. However, in other contexts we cannot assume these. Examining what public interest means in developing countries can be useful to identify these taken for granted assumptions, and to re-examine this ubiquitous and enduring concept. We do this through a case study of land rights reform in post conflict Nicaragua.
After the third wave of democratization swept much of the world during the late twentieth century, many armed opposition groups disarmed and transformed themselves into political parties. This paper explores the electoral performance of four Central American parties that have roots in armed opposition movements. It finds that the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, which achieved the greatest success during their revolutionary periods, have also had the most success in electoral competition. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit and the Democratic Unification Party of Honduras, which trace their roots to relatively less successful armed opposition groups, have struggled in elections. Organizational factors, especially the number of combatants and popular support during the conflict, tend to provide a better explanation than institutional factors for the initial success of these groups as political parties.
This article argues that the post-conflict reconciliation process is undermined by the importance given to the retributive form of justice dominating peacebuilding and transitional justice measures. Retributive justice reinforces the division between perpetrator and victim, thus undermining the reconciliation process between antagonistic parties. The so-called objective categories of perpetrator and victim, so crucial for the administration and management of most peacebuilding measures, underestimate the individual and collective psychological dimension and intersubjective effects that these categories have upon the healing and reconciliation processes. The significance of the psychological dimension of reconciliation suggests a restorative justice approach that emphasizes the subjective and intersubjective meanings of justice and reconciliation. The case of post-genocide Rwanda will be used to show how the retributive justice approach can undermine the reconciliation process.
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