Systems of Violence, Second Edition

This book examines the political, economic, and military factors that have contributed to thirty-seven years of protracted violent conflict in Colombia. Using four years of field research, and more than two hundred interviews, Nazih Richani examines Colombia's "war system"—the systemic interlacing relationship among actors in conflict, their respective political economy, and also the overall political economy of the system they help in creating. Several key questions are raised, including when and why do some conflicts protract, and what types of socioeconomic and political configurations make peaceful resolutions difficult to obtain? Also addressed are the lessons of other protracted conflicts, such as those found in Lebanon, Angola, and Italy. In this expanded second edition Richani contributes new chapters looking at developments in Colombia since the book's initial publication a decade ago and a look at the challenges for peace that lie ahead.

List of Illustrations
Prologue
Notes to Second Edition
Acknowledgments

1. The Contours and the Theory

2. Institutional Failure: Genesis of the War System

3. The Military and the Comfortable Impasse

4. Guerillas and the Impasse

5. Paramilitaries, Organized Crime, and the Dynamics of War

6. The Dominant Classes and the Prospects of Peace

7. Colombia’s Civil War in Comparative Perspective

8. Third Parties, War Systems’ Inertia, and Conflict Termination: The Doomed Peace Process in Colombia, 1998–2002

9. The War System: From Comfortable Impasse to Unstable Equilibrium, 2002–2012

10. Bastard Rentier Capitalism: The Political Economy of Organized Crime in Colombia Sicarios and Caudillos

11. Colombia’s War System in Comparative Perspective

Appendix: Selection of the Interview Population
Addendum
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SUNY series in Global Politics, List of Titles