Tillyian process without a Tillyian effect: criminalised economies and state-building in the Colombian conflict

ABSTRACT

Illegal economies have received substantial attention in conflict studies over the past decades. Often, this attention is linked to economicist paradigms, rendering invisible the political processes linking conflict and illegal economies. By discussing the Colombian case, we argue that criminalisation is linked to patterns of capital accumulation and State-building. First, it reflects a long-term conflict of Proudhonian overtones between small-scale producers and big capital; secondly, it reflects a Tillyian process but without a Tillyian effect. Thus, the interaction between capital accumulation, political power and warfare takes place, without the expected result of a centralised and efficient, democratic State.

KEYWORDS:

• Illegal economies
• cocaine
• illegal mining
• criminalisation
• state-building
• conflict

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Patricia Correa and Maira Triana for their assistance. Thanks to Michael Mann, Siniša Malešević, Jenny Pearce, Christian Olsson, Ana María López and Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín for their most invaluable feedback during the ‘Political Power, Criminality and Conflict’ workshop (10/06/2021) and on subsequent drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In Colombia there are many irregular armed groups, with various organisational structures, constituencies, differential links to State institutions and wildly diverging political commitments. As such, to collapse them all into the category of ‘non-State armed groups’ clusters together group that have little in common, obscuring both the dynamics of conflict and the State’s role in it.

2. US Congress, ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot Act) Act of 2001. Public Law 107–56. 107^th Congress. 26 October 2001.

3. Narco-terrorism was used in the 1980s to describe Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel in their gruesome war against president Barco’s agreement of extradition with the US. However, the US ambassador Lewis Tamb has already referred to Colombian guerrillas as narco-guerrillas back in 1984 (Tokatlian 2000).

4. See the presentation of the Department of Defence (circa 2018) http://proyectos.andi.com.co/Documents/CEE/Colombia%20Genera%202015/Viernes/JoseJavierPerez.pdf

5. Right-wing paramilitaries regulate these activities in certain regions, but does not seem to bother too much the Colombian establishment, who shows a strategic tolerance in these cases.

6. For these debates in the Colombian parliament, see Gaceta del Congreso (03/08/2009. Year XVIII, No 673), Gaceta del Congreso (02/08/2010. Year XIX. No 476), Gaceta del Congreso (07/07/ 2013. Year XXII. No 471) and Gaceta del Congreso (16/09/ 2013. Year XXII, No 721).

7. See for instance, the central bank economic reports for some of these regions -Informe de Coyuntura Económica (Banco de la República de Colombia). We checked the reports of Chocó, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo, Vaupés y Vichada for 2013 and 2014.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José A. Gutiérrez

José A. Gutiérrez Sociologist, researcher and lecturer. He has worked extensively on the Colombian conflict on issues related to governance and state-building. He has experience in Ireland, the EU, Kenya and Indonesia on development research. Currently he works in Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Ireland) as post-doctoral research fellow.

Estefanía Ciro

Estefanía Ciro Research coordinator on drug trafficking, cocaine economies and war on drugs in the Truth Commission (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad), Colombia. Researcher at the Colombian Amazonian Think-Tank AlaOrillaDelRío. UNESCO Juan Bosch Prize Winner (2018). Political and social sciences PhD at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2016).