Party politics amid civil war: Brutality,

narcotrafficking and corruption in Colombia’s

transition
Juan Sebastián Lara-Rodríguez
PhD researcher in Development Studies

4th Annual Conference Latin American Peace Science

Medellín, January 2023
Contents
• 1. Question and aim
• 2.1. Hypothesis 1
• 2.2. Hypothesis 2
• 2.3. Hypothesis 3
• 3.1. Response variable (Brutality)
• 3.2. Response variable (Corruption)
• 3.2. Response variable (Narcotics trafficking)
• 3.4. Explanatory variables (Political parties matrix)
• 4. Findings
• 5. Key takeaways
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1. Question and aim
• Civil wars can lie in the political parties’ incapacity to
spread homogeneously promises of prosperity and also
undermine the opposition groups political participation.
• What kind of informal violent / coercive rules are
enforced by these organizations when democracy is
permeated by civil war?
• The aim is analyse empirically the enforcement of these
informal rules by the 19 active political parties and the
Significant Groups of Citizens (GSC) during the 2011–
2020 time span.

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2.1. H. 1 There are political parties whose administrations are
more likely to encourage or reduce brutality
• Brutality as a cultural modality.
• Counterinsurgent armies are notoriously brutal (Weinstein, 2006).
• Rebel groups use a different repertoire of brutality, inflicted mainly
on local elites.
• Electoral violence (Fjelde, 2020). Political parties with performed well
(Daly, 2019).
• Daly (2022) being ruled by a militia-linked mayor reduces levels of
insecurity and crime. Fergusson et al., (2021) left-wing mayor leads
to a significant increase in subsequent right-wing paramilitary
violence.

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 2.2. H. 2 The government of some political parties increases
or reduces the likelihood of narcotics trafficking.
• As Collier (2007) observed, 95% of global narcotics production is
from countries in conflict. In LatAm cartels are powerful political
agents (Rotberg, 2019).
• The drugs political-criminal networks are shaped by several actors
(Rensselaer W & Thoumi, 2003).
• Private militias emerge when political parties not renegotiate with
OCGs (Trejo & Ley, 2018).
• The links between the Liberal party and the Medellin and Cali cartels
are disclosed by Clawson & Rensselaer (1996), or in exposés of the
alleged relationships between rightist parties and cartels (Brodzinsky,
2012; Casey, 2018).

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 2.3. H. 3 Some political parties administrating positions at the
executive branch may cause higher or lower corruption levels.
• Corruption can bridge public with private sectors, political with
economic power, mediated by political parties (Rotberg, 2019). Due
the necessity of parties for funding to compete, this this can set the
stage for political corruption (Mwangi, 2008).
• Previous academic research about corruption in Colombia has been
focused on electoral preferences: Newspaper Vs NGOs and the
judiciary (Botero et al., 2015); greater rates of perceived corruption
are associated with reduced political participation (Školník, 2020); or
how corruption demobilizes voters (Carreras & Vera, 2018).
• Fergusson et al., (2021, p. 11) “find no evidence that left-wing
mayors or their secretaries are more corrupt than municipal
executive officials from other parties”.
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 3.1. Response variable (Brutality)
Figure 1. Mortal acts of brutality in Colombia by the perpetrator (2011–2020)
Figure 2. Non-mortal brutish acts in Colombia (2011–2020)

Based on Unidad de Victimas (2021).

Notes: A total of 52 unclassified victims were overlooked.

Based on Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (2021).

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 3.1. Response variable (Brutality)
Fig. 3. Colombia’s brutality spatial distribution 2010s

Indicator Variables (2012-2020)

Based on the national Victims unit

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 3.2. Response variable (Corruption)
Figure 4. Nationwide cases of corruption by type of the crime and year of the fact (2011-2020)

Figure 5. National corruption records per group (2011-2020)

Based on Fiscalía General de la Nación (2021).

Based on Congreso de la República de Colombia (2000) and Fiscalía General de la Nación (2021).
Notes: The articles’ names are a free translation by the author considering the Colombian
Código Penal Ley 599 de 2000. Records that do not cite explicitly an article in particular were
included in the value of the article with grammatical binding subject.
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 3.2. Response variables (Corruption)
Fig. 6 Colombia’s corruption spatial distribution 2010s

Based on the Attorney General office.

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 3.3. Response variable (Narcotics trafficking)
Figure 8. World and Colombia’s coca crops and potential cocaine production (2011–2020)

Based on United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2021b: 55, 2021a: 11–12).

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 3.3. Response variables (Narcotics trafficking)
Colombia’s coca crops spatial distribution 2010s

Based on Colombia’s Drugs Observatory

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 3.4. Explanatory variables (Political parties matrix)
Political parties elected at the executive branch (2011–2020)

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 4. Findings (Mayors)

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 4. Findings (Governors)

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 4. Findings (Presidents)

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 5. Key takeaways
•The peace process transition with FARC-EP has shrunk brutality, the
corruption remains constant and, since the rebel groups’
demobilization, there has been a coca crops boom.
•The executive power in the time span has been concentrated in the
Liberal and Conservador (strong parties), CR, P. de la U (personalistic)
or a charismatic party such as CD they dominated that branch with
allies such as evangelical parties and para-politics parties.

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 5. Key takeaways
• I reject the null hypotheses based on the findings, the causal effects
being divergent. So, the Colombian political parties enforce or reject
these civil war tacit rules to different grades, according to the
governing categories and election scenarios.
• The spatial heterogeneity of brutality and narcotrafficking is rather
more accentuated than corruption; indeed, in the two former, non-
state armed groups performed a positively notorious role, whilst in the
latter the negative causality of voter turnout indicates citizens’
accountability concerns.

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Thanks!

juan.lara@phd.iseg.ulisboa.pt