Institutionalizing Global Wars: State Transformations in Colombia, 1978-2002

The role of the US government in setting policies and fostering institutional innovations related to both Colombian wars, the one on drugs and the one against guerrillas, is discussed. The US role has two aspects. On one hand, it defends democracy. Were it not for US pressure, it is doubtful that the Colombian military would have tried to combat the paramilitary groups that, in collusion with the army, were committing atrocities against civilians. Figures show that it was only after pressure became intolerable, in the midst of a serious Colombia-US conflict, that the paramilitary started to be harassed. In the war on drugs, the US has combated the penetration of organized crime into politics, a noxious phenomenon for any democracy. On the other hand, it has severely distorted some basic democratic mechanisms, abducting them from public deliberation and creating reserved domains that are not only undemocratic, but also allow the growth of authoritarian tendencies within the state, as in the aerial fumigation of illicit crops. While trying to defend simultaneously its war agendas and basic democratic institutions and procedures in Colombia, US government activity was a catalyst for two fundamental changes in the Colombian polity.