Pallotta_Thesis

Where is the State of Colombia?
Using Regression Analysis to Test the Effectiveness of Colombia’s State-Building Efforts
Against Non-State Actors
By: Dan Pallotta
Advisors: Professor Lena Ogrokhina and Professor Brandon Van Dyck

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................................................3
PART 1...........................................................................................................................................................................................8
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND....................................................................................................................................................8
FARC......................................................................................................................................................................................9
ELN......................................................................................................................................................................................17
AUC.....................................................................................................................................................................................19
Uribe....................................................................................................................................................................................23
PART 2........................................................................................................................................................................................33
DATA DESCRIPTION...............................................................................................................................................................33
MODEL......................................................................................................................................................................................35
RESULTS....................................................................................................................................................................................38
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................................................44
TABLES AND FIGURES...................................................................................................................................................46
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................................................59

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Introduction
Latin American states are notoriously weak. The high homicide rates found throughout
the region reflect Latin American governments’ inability to prevent interpersonal violence, one
of the most basic functions of any state. Latin America’s low rates of tax collection provide
another example of the inability of governments in the region to carry out basic state functions
effectively. These states also fail to penetrate their entire national territories; consequently, the
region of Latin America is replete with “brown areas”, or territories where the state is effectively
absent1. The existence of “brown areas” merits our attention. Where the state is absent, non-state
actors (e.g., landowners, drug trafficking organizations, guerrillas, paramilitaries) often fill the
void; and violence, the denial of citizenship rights, and localized forms of authoritarian rule
frequently result. Examples of brown areas taken over by violent non-state actors include the
Peruvian highlands, which the brutal Maoist insurgency, the Shining Path, largely controlled in
the late 1980s and early 1990s; southern Mexico, broad swathes of which are currently
controlled by brutal drug cartels; and Brazil’s slums, many of which are controlled by drug
trafficking organizations.
Perhaps the most important brown area in contemporary Latin American history,
however, has been the Colombian countryside. The Colombian state’s absence and/or
corruptibility in vast regions of rural Colombia enabled three non-state actors—drug cartels, then
guerrilla groups and paramilitaries—to assume control of significant territory in the final decades
of the 20th century. The result was a horrific spike in violence. Colombia became the murder
capital of the world. For the sake of Colombia, and more broadly, for the sake of Latin America,
1 O'donnell, Guillermo. Polyarchies and the (un) rule of Juan March law in Latin America. Instituto de Estudios e
Investigaciones, (1998).

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which has the highest homicide rate in the world, we must figure out how to build stronger
states.
Although there are many definitions of a state, this thesis chooses to adopt German
sociologist Max Weber’s view of the state. At its broadest, Weber claims that a successful state
has a ‘monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.’ The modern
definitions of state—which posit that states need to protect borders, collect taxes, and deliver
social services— can only develop if a state first has the physical capacity to enforce the
population. The Colombian state, or lack thereof, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, would not
have been considered ‘successful’ according to Weber. For this reason, it is important to
understand how states can develop, provided they do not have a monopoly on violence.
The most influential theory of state-building, sometimes called the “bellicist approach,”
posits that strong states (e.g., those of modern Europe) tend to emerge from centuries of
warfare2. According to this approach, contexts of constant warfare (e.g., medieval Europe) create
incentives and selection pressures that favor the emergence of strong states. Faced with the threat
of extinction, governments have strong incentives to extract taxes and build professional armies,
and to provide public goods (e.g., law and order) to the population in exchange for their tax
payments. If governments fail to do this, they will be conquered by stronger states.
Miguel Centeno’s 2002 book, Blood and Debt, applies the bellicist approach to Latin
America, arguing that Latin American states are weak, in large part, because there has been
relatively little war, and almost no “total war,” in Latin America’s brief postcolonial history 3. In
fact, with respect to warfare, Latin America was the most peaceful continent on Earth in the
twentieth century.
2 Fukuyama, Francis. "I. The Primacy of Culture." Journal of Democracy 6.1 (1995): 7-14.
3 Centeno, Miguel Angel. “Blood and debt: War and the nation-state in Latin America” Penn State Press (2002)

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More warfare, however, is hardly a prescription for state-building in the contemporary
era. Yet, if not by means of warfare, how can Latin American states grow in strength? This thesis
attempts to demonstrate that there is an alternative route to state-building. With political will and
a major financial investment, states can be made to penetrate brown areas and cure the ills (e.g.,
violence, denial of citizenship rights) that plague such territories. This is precisely what president
Álvaro Uribe did in Colombia in the first decade of the 2000s.
After rapidly increasing in size prior to 2002, Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia (FARC), El Ejército Nacional de Colombia (ELN) and Las Autodefensas Unidas de
Colombia (AUC), which were three of the largest and most violent Colombian insurgent groups,
became considerably weaker. By 2008, the presence of each of the three non-state actors dropped
by more than half, with AUC completely demobilizing. Although more than 50% of
Colombian’s believed in the possibility of a guerrilla victory in July 2002, by 2004 this
percentage fell to almost 20%4. The demise of these three groups is important because the
relevant literature explains that they were entirely responsible for the country’s huge levels of
violence. In the same period that guerrilla and paramilitary groups expanded in size (between
1998 and 2002), the homicide rate climbed by 20%. Equally important was the fact that
increasing state capacity, and decreasing non-state actor forces, according to the conventional
wisdom, lowered homicide rates. In 2002, there were 70 murders per 100,000 people, by 2004
that number fell to 48 murders per 100,000, a drop of more than 30%. Out of all this data comes
a significant question: how did Colombia, the former murder capital of the world, so drastically
reverse the soaring influence of guerrilla and paramilitary groups in only a few years? My
answer lies in the policies of President Álvaro Uribe.
4 Invamer Gallup Colombia, “Gallup Poll 57,” Medellín, February 2007, p. 100.

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Almost every source available that discusses the decay of guerrilla and paramilitary
forces attributes Colombia’s success to changes implemented by President Uribe, who was
elected in 2002. Through his democratic security policy, Uribe increased the fraction of GDP
dedicated to the police and the military. Additionally, he used US funding to bolster Colombian
forces instead of trying to solely eliminate coca production. As state forces grew, the Colombian
state was better able to threaten and replace FARC, ELN and AUC, pushing them out of highly
populated areas. In spite of all the available information, there is no literature that uses
Colombian municipal data to test the veracity of these conclusions. The papers I have read,
which discussed Uribe’s policies, did not use regression analysis to test the statistical
significance of the President’s democratic security policy. This thesis picks up where those
articles left off and examines whether the changes introduced by Uribe actually contributed to
the mitigation of guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia.
Using various data sources, my thesis seeks to understand how FARC, ELN and AUC
saw massive declines in their strength during the early 2000s. The main goal of this project is to
use econometric regression analysis in conjunction with a comprehensive historical background
to test whether or not policies introduced by President Álvaro Uribe legitimately contributed to
the decline in the presence of violent, non-state actors. The main piece of legislation Uribe
implemented was the democratic security policy, which increased the number of specific military
groups whose primary function was to target the weaknesses of non-state actors. Using national
transfers as a proxy for Uribe’s democratic security policies, I find that increases in national
transfers decreased the probability of presence of guerrilla forces in a municipality, especially
with regards to the presence of FARC. Splitting the municipalities into ‘affected’ by Uribe's
policies and ‘non-affected’ by Uribe's policies, I find that for every 10% increase in national

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transfers, there is a 1.6p.p. decrease in the probability of FARC presence and a 1p.p. decrease in
the probability of ELN presence in the municipalities affected by policies.
The thesis is broken up into two separate sections. In Part 1, I provide a historical
background for each of the three major non-state actors and of President Uribe's democratic
security policies. In Part 2, I describe the data, outline the model —which tests Uribe’s policies
against the presence of FARC, ELN, AUC— explain the results, and make concluding remarks.

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Part 1
Historical Background
This section of the thesis provides a comprehensive look at four key players in the story
of Colombian state building: FARC, ELN, AUC and President Álvaro Uribe. It is imperative to
understand that the three major non-state actors differed in both origin and function, which may
explain how some policies could affect them differently. FARC and ELN were guerrilla
organizations, but AUC was a paramilitary organization. A guerrilla group is specifically geared
to operate against the state, while a paramilitary group operates in places where state police or
military forces are lacking. Ironically, paramilitary groups were sanctioned by the government
and were viewed as helpful, not problematic. Unfortunately, they became increasingly more
subversive in the early 1990s. By distinguishing between guerrilla and paramilitary groups, we
recognize that the motivations and goals of these groups are unique.
With unique goals come unique policies. Uribe’s expansion of state forces more directly
affected the size of FARC and ELN, but not AUC. However, his implementation of judicial
reform in conjunction with decreased sentencing for former insurgents proved more effect with
AUC than either of the other groups. The most significant disparity between these three groups
was their relationship with the coca trade and the illicit cocaine market. As I will explain in the
following chapters, the only group whose location was directly influenced by the coca trade was
FARC. ELN operated primarily in an area where coca was grown, but opposed using the crop to
make a profit. AUC forces were spread out much further than FARC or ELN and operated in
regions both near and away from coca production. Although AUC leader and co-founder Carlos

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Castaño called for a stop to all AUC involvement in cocaine production after 2002, AUC
continued to operate in areas with coca growth5.
Data collected from the ‘Universidad de Los Andes’ allowed me to map the location of
FARC, ELN, and AUC from 1997 through 2008. These maps, as far as I know, are the first
publicly available maps that indicate guerrilla/paramilitary presence in Colombia. Figures 5
through 10 were made using arcMAP. To the best of my knowledge, there is no data set that
shows specifically how many non-state forces were concentrated in one region, only binary
information showing whether troops were there, or were not there. These maps also provide a
concrete look at where non-state actors were located prior to Uribe.
FARC
One would think that the dismantling of the Medellin and Cali drug cartels’ would have
led to the almost immediate rebound of the Colombian state. Unfortunately, this was not the
case. In the five years following the termination of Pablo Escobar’s Antiochian-based cartel in
1994, the drug industry, along with most of its externalities, shifted to the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC. Located on the fringe of the Colombian territory,
FARC operated with almost complete dominance in rural areas with little-to-no government
oversight. This often meant that the FARC functioned as a state for those who were far from
major market cities in the country’s West. This was partially attributable to country’s geography,
with the Andes Mountains isolating the East from the West. However, FARC’s proliferation was
facilitated mostly by Colombian state inefficiencies. Despite years of handling narcotics
trafficking and violence in one region of the country, the Colombian government was unable to
5 Pardo, Sen Rafael, et al. “The peace process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia-AUC.” Ed.
Cynthia J. Arnson.No. 13. Washington:Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005) p. 3.

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effectively have a presence in the other, more rural, regions, leaving a gap that was eventually
filled by FARC.
FARC is, by no means, a new organization. After years of political domination by the
Liberal and Conservative parties via ‘Frente Nacional’ or the National Front, the poor and rural
communities felt severely underrepresented in Colombian government. Opposite the National
Front was the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC), which was established in the 1960s and
fought to represent poorer Colombians in the political realm. Of course, the anti-communist
government of Colombia sought to “destroy the independent ‘Communist’ republics in the
countryside6.” In order to protect these communities, the FARC became the armed wing of the
PCC, serving to protect rural communities.
Despite its early origin, the group remained a small-scale operation for a number of years
leading up to the Uribe Presidency. Prior to the 1980s, FARC had little economic success. Before
utilizing the coca trade, the guerilla group’s income came from extortion, bank robbing, and
kidnapping7 (FARC was also kept afloat with the help of Russian and Cuban communist
groups8). It was not until the late 1970s that the armed group began having an economic
relationship with rural farmers. Farmers’ connection to FARC led to the adoption of coca-based
financial planning for the organization. Furthermore, FARC’s coca-based income improved
given the group’s location. FARC’s presence in mostly low-altitude areas positively affected the
factors that determined coca growth, including temperature, soil quality and humidity9.
6 Cook, Thomas R. "The Financial Arm of the FARC: A Threat Finance Perspective." Journal of Strategic Security
4.1 (2011): p 20.
7 Alfredo Rangel Suarez, "Parasites and Predators: Guerrillas and the Insurgent Economy of Colombia," Journal of
International Affairs 53:2 (2000): p 582.
8 Cook, Thomas R. p 21.
9 Mejıa, Daniel, and Pascual Restrepo. “Do Illegal Drug Markets Breed Violence? Evidence for Colombia”
MIMEO, Universidad de los Andes (2011)

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FARC’s utilization of coca proved to be valuable in the long run, as the group would
become the largest and most capable non-state actor in Colombia. The decision to adopt coca
farming was made at the Seventh Guerrilla Conference in 1982. Although coca had a long
history of exploitation by free-market parties in Colombia, FARC found that its usefulness was
too valuable to pass up. It not only produced coca itself, but also taxed farmers who produced the
crop. The tax was called the ‘gramaje’ and was implemented in the department of Caquetá
primarily10. The taxes were collected in exchange for protection. Because it was illegal to grow
coca in Colombia, farmers were taking a serious risk in using some of their land to produce the
plant. FARC’s need to guard coca-producing farmers grew stronger as coca became more
relevant to Colombian.
According to both the US Department of State and UNODC, most coca from the Andean
region, prior to 1996, was grown in Bolivia and Peru11. In spite of its reputation as the drug
capital of Latin America, Colombia imported almost all its coca prior to 1995. Drug cartels were
more directly involved in transforming the coca crop into cocaine and then smuggling it into the
northern markets, specifically the United States. The relationship between the FARC and
Caquetan coca farmers was successful because prior to the fall of the cartels, coca growth, not
transportation or production, was small enough not to trigger significant government attention
and it allowed the FARC to operate in place of the state. The benefit of this relationship helped
facilitate FARC’s economic growth, resulting in the geographical expansion of the organization
beyond Caquetá12. Eventually, FARC dominated the Colombian countryside, mostly because of
11 http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2000/883.htm
12 Marcy, William L. “The Politics of Cocaine: How US Foreign Policy Has Created a Thriving Drug Industry in
Central and South America” Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010, p 120–3.

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its ability to intimidate citizens from rural communities. Without effective state presence in rural
areas, FARC became the state and thus, had a monopoly on violence.
An effective relationship between rural communities and FARC were able to flourish
partially due to the Colombian and US governments’ crackdown on the Medellin and Cali
cartels13. The state’s preoccupation with fighting the drug cartels was multifaceted. Colombia, in
focusing on eliminating illicit, coca-based organizations, ignored the growing influence of FARC
in the countryside. On top of this, Colombia fragmented the drug industry through the
dismantling of cartels. Ironically, the price of cocaine in the United States remained fairly steady
during the cartel’s undoing, suggesting that the elimination of cartels had not impacted the
supply of cocaine significantly. The geographical spread of the FARC coupled with their ties to
farmers allowed the guerrilla group to control the distribution of coca, set its price and intimidate
or even destroy small drug cartels not affiliated with FARC. Its success in controlling the drug
market was the reason for its spike in size towards the end of the 1990s. Peceny and Durnan
(2006) confirm this conclusion, by recognizing the failure of drug prohibition effects in
Colombia. Colombian policies together with US foreign policy allowed “the profits of the drug
trade to shift to other actors.14” Their notion is reaffirmed by Holmes, who concludes that FARC
received about half its income from coca-related activities and about a third of its army
(approximately 6,000 soldiers) were dedicated to organizing drug-related activities in the early
20th century15.
The primary problem with the state’s policy before Uribe was not due to a lack of
funding, but rather to an unfitting application of funds. Generally speaking, Colombia did not
14 Peceny, Mark, and Michael Durnan. "The FARC's best friend: US antidrug policies and the deepening of
Colombia's civil war in the 1990s." Latin American politics and society 48.2 (2006): p 95-116.
15 Holmes, Jennifer S., Sheila Amin Gutierrez de Pineres, and Kevin M. Curtin. "Drugs, violence, and development
in Colombia: A department-level analysis." Latin American Politics & Society 48.3 (2006): p 157-184.

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effectively utilize US foreign aid money prior to 2001. Between 1990 and 1998, coca production
jumped by 50 percent, despite US antidrug resistance aid totaling more than $600 million.
Moreover, between 1998 and 2001, coca production grew another 30 percent. It is necessary to
recognize that most of the gains in Colombia’s coca production occurred following the demise of
major cartels in 1995 and it is generally believed that guerrilla and paramilitary groups were the
primary beneficiaries of the new coca. FARC’s access to and control over coca gave the
organization legitimacy and capital. Moreover, FARC’s newfound legitimacy encouraged the
group to be more violent against civilians, the state and other non-state actors, such as ELN and
AUC. Violentologists suggest that violence can promote the legitimacy of non-state groups and
that there is “a correlation between wealth accumulation by criminal organizations and
violence.” “Wealth is power and power enables criminals to challenge the state through the use
of terrorism.16”
Nationally, the main issue with regards to farming coca was that its illegality meant the
state was not capable of benefitting from it. Because coca-growing regions were taxed and
overseen by FARC mostly after 1996, the group had effectively replaced the state. Farmers did
not produce more coca by acquiring more land; instead, they replaced their other crops. Coca
was more profitable than any other crop by a wide margin. Given the high price paid for coca
leaves, farmers saw the return on the crop as a major incentive to produce it. As farmers made
more money from coca, the state made less money from other crops, thus increasing the scale of
the underground economy while shrinking that of the Colombian economy. In 1998, agricultural
products (other than coffee) accounted for 48 and 50 percent of total GDP in the departments of
Caquetá and Putumayo respectively. Four years later those percentages fell to 17 percent in
16 Bibes, Patricia. "TransnationalOrganized Crime and Terrorism Colombia, a Case Study." Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice 17.3 (2001): p 251.

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Caquetá and 30 percent in Putumayo 17 . Further, between 2002 and 2005, Guaviare, the
department to the northeast of Caquetá, saw an equivalent drop in agricultural products as a
percentage of their GDP. The truth is not that these departments became more productive in
other areas, but rather most of their profits came from illicit market products. Illicit market
success hurt Colombia’s economy and, thusly, the state began attacking the crop’s production.
Unfortunately, its solution in fighting the growth of this markets failed in two respects: it did not
change the price of cocaine in the United States and it managed to hurt Colombian farmers and
the non-coca economy18.
The coca eradication effort was carried out using two separate methods: programs
encouraging farmers to replace coca plants and aerial fumigation. The latter was viewed more
negatively than the former. The problems with aerial fumigation had more to do with its side
effects than anything else. Those exposed to the fumigation chemicals experienced health issues
and the entire process was said to cause environment degradation. One of the more apparent
issues was that aerial fumigation destroyed crops other than coca. The policy managed to hurt
farmer’s yields in a number of vital agricultural goods, effectively destroying an entire season of
crops and an entire season of profits. Unfortunately, farmers who did not produce any coca were
also negatively affected by the fumigation.
Colombia’s initial fight against the production of coca had been entirely ineffective. The
introduction of aerial fumigation policies in the late 1990s did not thwart coca production until
roughly 200219. Holmes Guitiérrez, and Curtin’s 2006 paper recognized that as the state tried to
17 http://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/esp/cuentas-economicas/cuentas-departamentales/79-cuentas-
nacionales/cuentas-nacionales-departamentales/2832-pib-por-ramas-de-actividad-corrientes-y-constantes-1990-2005
18 Veillette, Connie. "Plan Colombia: A progress report." LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, 2005.
19 Bibes, Patricia. "TransnationalOrganized Crime and Terrorism Colombia, a Case Study." Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice 17.3 (2001): p 251.

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eradicate coca, violence increased, further questioning the logic behind early counter-coca
policies20. This finding was echoed in Medina and Martinez’ article which shows a positive
correlation between drug prohibition and violence. It was only until Alvaro Uribe became
President in August of 2002 that Colombia was more effectively able to combat FARC profits
and recover some of their own. Adding further difficulty to the coca eradication efforts was the
natural topographical layout of Colombia.
Colombia’s Andes Mountains were another obstacle in the way of eradicating FARC.
The mountains separated Colombia’s eastern side from its western side, which placed a burden
on physical communication between the two halves. Transportation infrastructure is by no means
inexpensive, even on flat roads. Building across the Andes Mountains is, as one would expect, an
expensive operation. Because of this, the Colombian government put little effort towards
creating and maintaining cross-country roads. The lack of said roads mitigated the opportunity
for rural farmers to connect with either the government or markets in the western region of the
country. Understand this dilemma is important because it serves as a primary reason why
policies like aerial fumigation did not stop coca production. Aerial fumigation was cheaper than
infrastructure and thus was used in place of expanding the state. President Uribe success,
however, did not rely predominately on fumigation tactics to stop FARC’s coca production.
In addition to aerial fumigation techniques, President Uribe used US funding to send
more armed state forces than ever before into the rural East. The result was a major reduction in
FARC capabilities. President Uribe forced FARC further eastward while simultaneously
eradicating coca. Despite FARC continuing to exist in Colombia, the amount of coca grown in
in Colombia: A department-level analysis." Latin American Politics & Society 48.3 (2006): p 157-184.

16
the country in 2008 was far lower than the amount grown fifteen years prior21. It was the increase
in police and military presence that ruined FARC financially; cutting off coca production took
away almost half of the organizations profits.
Uribe’s development of the military between 2002 and 2007 serves as the primary
explanation for FARC’s dwindling capabilities. From 1998 to 2007, the number of professional
military soldiers increased from 20,000 to 78,000. Moreover, following his entry into office,
Uribe created new military units specifically designed to target FARC. In addition to adding
mountain battalions, used to prevent guerrilla expansion, Colombia acquired 27 more helicopters
and 25 new Super Tucano aircrafts to supplement new increases to military capacity. Lastly, in
order to protect transportation routes, Uribe formed “carabinero” squads, responsible for
patrolling highways and guarding key roads. Because of these specialized state troops, guerrilla
combat deaths rose drastically between 2001 and 200422. Not only were these improvements to
the state’s physical ability successful at hurting FARC and other groups, but they also had the
dual effect of discouraging further violence.
It was only when President Álvaro Uribe expanded the state’s military presence by
moving eastward did the FARC lose steam economically. Only six years into his administration,
President Álvaro Uribe managed to cut the number of FARC occupied municipalities
substantially, which fell from 574 in 2002 to 271 in 200823. The intervention of specialized
government forces in FARC-occupied territories is the primary reason for the guerrilla groups
shrinking capabilities.
21 Brodzinsky, Sibylla. "Colombia Says Rise in Coca Cultivation Shows Why It Was Right to Stop Spraying." The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 02 July 2015.
22 Restrepo and Spagat, “The Colombia Conflict, Where is it Heading?”
23 Figures 5 and 6

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ELN
Despite also operating as a guerrilla organization, ELN, The Ejército de Liberación
Nacional, was not the same group as FARC. ELN was a university movement organized by pro-
Castro students, as opposed to FARC, which was mostly the result of peasant initiative.
Although the group proposed a people’s democracy rather than complete socialism, its main
ideology was rooted in Marxist-Leninist thinking 24 . ELN forces were predominately
concentrated in the northeastern part of the country. Though almost completely decimated during
the 1970s, the group reemerged during the 1980s and was even able to control oil-based
operations in several departments. Specifically, the group went after the Caño Limón-Coveñas
pipeline in 1995 and 1996, causing blackouts in a number of important cities25. Much of the
violence the group caused was a result of: (1) trying to maintain the oil producing regions
bordering Venezuela and (2) fighting FARC and AUC forces26. President Pastrana had tried to
negotiate with ELN during his presidency from 1998 to 2002, but, unfortunately, ELN never saw
eye-to-eye with him and peace talks never prevailed. Despite this, his administration was
effective at fighting ELN forces.
ELN occupied fewer regions than did FARC or AUC, but caused similar levels of social
and economic disruption. Most notably, the guerrilla group bombed the Caño Limón pipeline in
Arauca Department more than 150 times in 2002. These attacks cut off oil to the Caribbean coast
for six months, creating both an economic and ecological disaster27. Outside of performing oil
related attacks, ELN brought violence to Colombia through extortion, kidnapping and robbery.
24 Gruber, Barbara, and Jan Pospisil. "‘Ser Eleno’: Insurgent identity formation in the ELN." Small Wars &
Insurgencies 26.2 (2015): p 232.
25 DeShazo, Peter, Tanya Primiani, and Phillip McLean. “Back from the brink: evaluating progress in Colombia,
1999-2007” Csis, (2007)
26 Ibid, 7.
27 Phillip McLean, “Colombia,” in Energy Cooperation in the Western Hemisphere: Benefits and Impediments, ed.
Sidney Weintraub (Washington,D.C.: CSIS, 2007), p. 199.

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Dissimilar to FARC, however, was the fact that ELN did not use the drug trade as a source of
revenue, considering it would take legitimacy away from their cause28. The lack of coca-based
operations may explain why ELN occupied fewer regions and was physically smaller than the
other two insurgent groups.
Uribe dealt with ELN similarly to the way he dealt with FARC, through state expansion.
Improvements to state capacity forced ELN to become more defensive, leading to fewer civilian
attacks. Specifically, “murders, kidnappings and human rights abuses decreased substantially,”
and by the end of Uribe’s first year in office, ELN presence had fallen by roughly 25 percent2930.
Out of the three major non-state actors studied in this thesis, the least amount of data exists for
ELN. Some sources indicate that they often fought with FARC troops and others indicate that the
two groups worked and continue to work together almost symbiotically. Moreover, the
government has been continuously trying to have peace talks with the group since 1998 but to no
avail. Although the number of ELN-occupied municipalities fell to 83 in 2008 from 209 in 2002,
the group is still active today, in part, because Uribe could not successfully negotiate with and
encourage them to demobilize.
Although considerably weakened in the face of massive increases to state operational
capacity during Uribe’s presidency, ELN forces continued to resist peace talks with the Uribe
administration. Mexico tried to operate as a mediator during state negotiations with the ELN in
2005, but the terrorist group rejected the help of the Mexican government. Mexico believed that
regardless of what happened, the group would never willingly negotiate with the Colombia31.
ELN’s behavior is alleged to have been influenced by FARC, who might have been under the
28 Gruber and Pospisil, p. 233.
29 DeShazo, Peter “Back from the brink: evaluating progress in Colombia, 1999-2007” Csis, (2007)
30 International Crisis Group, “Colombia: President Uribe’s Democratic Security Policy,” p. 7.
31 Valencia, Andrés, “The Peace Process in Colombia with the ELN: The Role of Mexico,” Latin American Program
Special Report (Washington,D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, March 2006), p. 17.

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impression that having both groups remain active is better than having only one group remain
active. Irrespective of the reason, what is clear is that ELN appeared unwilling to pursue a
resolution with the Colombian state. Even under the Justice and Peace Law (JPL) of 2005, which
promised shorter sentence for guerrillas and paramilitaries that came forward, ELN never
unilaterally agreed to demobilize. It is unclear whether the group’s persistence is a reflection of
the ineffectiveness of the Colombian state or whether the group is partially protected by FARC.
In spite of Uribe’s best efforts at both fighting and negotiating with ELN, the group survived his
presidency and is still operating today32.
AUC
Other than FARC and ELN, a paramilitary group named AUC, the Autodefensas Unidas
de Colombia, had a significant impact on Colombian security policy in the early 2000s. One
article claims that the group accounted for close to 70% of the total paramilitary forces operating
within the country in 200333. Most of the information surrounding the mitigation of this group’s
capabilities has to do with the major demobilization effort, which began gaining momentum in
the beginning 2003, just four months after President Álvaro Uribe entered office. The
termination of AUC was not a result of increased state violence towards AUC militants, but
rather a result of judicial deals. Unlike FARC and ELN, the negotiations and peace talks with
AUC successfully demobilized the organization.
The origin of the AUC fundamentally differed from that of FARC or ELN. While the
FARC was a guerrilla movement that originated as the armed portion of the PCC and ELN was a
guerrilla movement that the result of a student-based initiative, AUC was created and sanctioned
32 “The guerrilla groups in Colombia” (http://www.unric.org/en/colombia/27013-the-guerrilla-groups-in-colombia)
33 "Colombia: Paramilitary Group Agrees To Peace Talks." NACLA Report On The Americas 37.2 (2003): 1-2.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.

20
by the state “in order to combat guerilla groups active since the 1960s in areas of the country
with limited or no state presence”34. The root of the state’s problem with expansion into ‘brown
areas’ had to do with this hiring of mercenary-like groups in place of state police or military.
AUC was formed because the Colombian government lacked the capacity to oversee every part
of its territory. AUC, because of its purpose, was exceptionally unwilling to negotiate with a
state that was less than capable of replacing them. After it lost its state sanction status in 1989
because of its new connection to private interests, AUC would not negotiate with the government
until Uribe proved he could bolster state capacity.
Both governmental and non-governmental organizations in Colombia recognized that
paramilitary groups, like AUC, were responsible for the most violations to international
humanitarian laws between 1994 and 200235. In 1999, a region named Catatumbo in the Norte de
Santander province saw a massive influx of AUC. The reason for such activity was to secure a
strategic position for coca cultivation and gasoline smuggling near the Venezuelan border. It is
estimated that between 1999 and 2004, AUC murdered approximately 5,200 individuals in the
area. Furthermore, the group’s murders were not limited to only guerrilla militants. AUC killed
politicians, human rights activists, union leaders, and civilians too36. The group also has a history
of subversively infiltrating state institutions such as the mayors’ office, the police and the office
of the Attorney General of Colombia (Fiscalía). Beyond murder and institutional infiltration,
AUC acquired valuable land via extortion, blackmail and forced sales. Given this violent
background, the peace talks orchestrated between AUC and the Colombian government were
initially not successful.
34 Pardo, Sen Rafael, et al. “The peace process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia-AUC.” Ed.
Cynthia J. Arnson.No. 13. Washington:Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005): p. 3.
35 Pardo, Sen Rafael, et al. (2005): p 2.
36 Levitsky, Steven, “The Comparative Politics of Latin America” (Harvard course)

21
Negotiations between AUC and the government nearly failed numerous times between
2003 and 2004. The disappearance of high-ranking AUC commanders made the group both
unstable and wary of the Colombian government’s motives. Soon enough, there were internal
rivalries for control of the paramilitary forces which is alleged to have led to the kidnapping and
murder of Carlos Castaño, AUC’s co-leader and founder. Castaño’s absence could have been a
result of his explaining the details of AUC’s former involvement in the drug trade, leading to his
indictment in the US on cocaine trafficking charges. Nevertheless, talks with AUC eventually
prevailed and by the end of 2004, almost 4,000 paramilitary groups had officially demobilized
(some of the demobilized AUC members are alleged to have been non-members only hoping to
reap benefits from the negotiations). Uribe successfully recognized the differences between
guerrilla negotiations and paramilitary negotiations and applied that information to his talks with
AUC.
The Uribe administration approach to demilitarizing AUC fundamentally contrasted from
its guerrilla negotiations. Since the inception of the Uribe presidency, the attitude toward AUC
was to seek peace negotiations with the group rather than attempt to fight them. This strategy
was influenced by the fact that AUC was the largest paramilitary group and operated in the most
popular region of the country. A former presidential security advisor, Alfredo Rangel, mentioned
that the Colombian government would not have had the funding or capability to finance a fight
against AUC in the West while simultaneously combating FARC forces in the Southeast and
ELN in the Northeast37. Moreover, if the state cannot show that it had the capability to replace a
paramilitary group, that group has less incentive to demobilize: “we can’t abandon these regions
because people demand that we stay; otherwise, the guerrillas will come and take revenge”38.
37 Pardo, Sen Rafael, et al. (2005): p 8.
38 Ibid 20-21

22
Unlike Uribe’s policy towards FARC and ELN, negotiating with AUC was an entirely
different operation with entirely different consequences. Dissimilar from AUC, negotiations with
FARC had not worked during the Pastrana presidency. FARC used the negotiations as a way to
strengthen their own military capabilities. It is generally believed that talks with the FARC failed
because the military was not expanding as rapidly as it needed to and was thus weaker than the
guerrilla groups. FARC saw no need to negotiate with the government because it had a physical
upper hand. In understanding the failure of the previous attempts at negotiations with non-state
actors, the Uribe administration knew that negotiating with AUC required a new, more effective
approach; one that would rely upon military expansion more drastically than it had before.
Thankfully, Uribe achieved increased police and military expansion during his term. The
defense-spending portion of GDP rose to 5.2 percent of GDP in 2003, from previously low levels
during the 1990s. Defense spending saw a similar boost, moving from $4.6 billion in 2003 to
$6.9 billion in 2006. Increasing defense spending led to a 68 percent increase in state armed
forces between 1999 and 2007 to 260,000 soldiers and a 37 percent increase in police forces over
the same period, reaching roughly 136,000 officers.
Despite the hesitation and concern voiced halfway through Uribe’s first term, his
demobilization policies worked successfully against AUC. Under the oversight of the
Organization of American States (OAS), 2,500 AUC fighters demobilized in the latter half of
200439. Additionally, the implementation of the Justice and Peace Law (JPL) in July 2005 proved
to be one of President Uribe’s most effective policies. The JPL was a bargain between quicker
demobilization and less severe punishments. JPL allowed for an insurgent fighter to come
forward, admit his/her crimes and then receive a reduced sentence in exchange for putting down
39 International Crisis Group, “Colombia: Towards Peace and Justice?” Latin America Report, no. 16
(Bogotá/Brussels: International Crisis Group, March 14, 2006), appendix B.

23
their weapons. In spite of the controversy surrounding this policy, it proved to be seriously
effective. Between the beginning of the policy’s implementation in 2005 through the end of
2006, approximately 32,000 fighters were removed from the armed conflict40. This led to a
drastic fall in the homicide rate and an equally as large increase in state capacity in that same
region. The success of AUC mitigation is properly visualized in graphs 9 and 10, which show
that the number of AUC-active municipalities fell from 295 in 2002 to 47 in 200841.
Uribe
At its broadest, President Álvaro Uribe’s strategy was to increase police activity
throughout Colombia’s brown areas. The eastern portion of the country—with many brown
areas— was less in habited than the western portion and, ergo, required fewer resources than did
the west. Given this dilemma, the police and military forces, prior to President Uribe, were
concentrated in the more populated West. Uribe took it upon himself to eliminate the power of
non-state actors by expanding into the less-populated municipalities in the East. Although this
may have seemed like a minor task, there were approximately 158 municipalities in August of
2002 that did not have any sort of police presence 42 and in a country with roughly 1,150
municipalities (in 2011), this was a significant deficiency. No president in previous years
mirrored Uribe’s commitment to expanding the physical influence of the Colombian.
It took more than just negotiations to change or alter the trajectory of the growth of
Colombian non-state actors in the early 21st century. From 1998 through 2002, President Andrés
Pastrana Arango took an alternative approach to stopping the rise of FARC, ELN and AUC in
Colombia. Instead of increasing military presence or increasing attacks on paramilitary groups,
40 International Crisis Group, “Colombia’s New Armed Groups,” p. 1.
41 Figures 9 and 10
42 Shifter, Michael, and Vinay Jawahar (2004): p 146.

24
Pastrana decided that negotiating with the groups would better serve the interests of Colombians.
Unfortunately, this decision helped increase the strength of non-state actors in Colombia, leading
to a spike in violence that countered the previously downward trajectory. Elected in 2002,
President Álvaro Uribe had his work cut out for him. The new head of state needed to radically
change Colombia’s direction regarding the elimination of the surging number of insurgent forces
in nearly every corner of the country. With the implementation of the democratic security
policy—meant to revamp the country’s dwindling military and police capability— President
Uribe was able to successfully reform the state’s ability to counter non-state actors, ultimately
leading to the formation of a safer Colombia.
A major impediment to Uribe’s democratic security policy was the fact that Colombia
was one of the more geographically varied countries in South America and, because of that, had
profound economic differences. The coastal nation, in 2002, had one of the lowest road densities
of any nation in Latin America43 (until 2013, there was no data available on infrastructure
spending in Colombian municipalities), making air transportation the only quick method of intra-
nation transportation44. The lack of accessible roads meant there was little contact between
municipalities, on a political level or on an economic level. According to Méndez and Núñez,
geography has had a measurable effect on the income of specific municipalities. Roughly 40% of
all variations in municipal income per capita are explained by geographical differences. Within
the geographical variations, distance to domestic markets as well as soil suitability had the
largest impact on per capita income and growth45. These variations in municipal GDP were
almost predominately responsible for the development of brown areas. The brown areas would
43 Sanchez Torres, Fabio, and Núñez Méndez, Jairo. Geography and Economic Development in Colombia: A
Municipal Approach.Thesis. Universidad De Los Andes, (2000): p 7
44 Holmes, Jennifer S., Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres, and Kevin M. Curtin. “Guns, drugs,and development in
Colombia” University of Texas Press, (2010)
45 Sanchez Torres “Geography and Economic Development in Colombia: A Municipal Approach” p 58.

25
ultimately lead to the formation of drug cartels and later, and more importantly, violent guerrilla
and paramilitary groups.
Tracing the problem of non-state actors in Colombia was easier, geographically speaking,
during the times of the Medellin and Cali cartels. The 1980s and early 1990s had seen very
specific cartel behavior: coca was grown in Peru and Bolivia, flown into Colombia, turned into
cocaine and then smuggled out of the country. Pablo Escobar, the drug kingpin of the Medellin
Cartel, smuggled drugs through Antioquia, a Colombian department in the western part of the
country. Cocaine was mainly processed in jungles towards the eastern part of the country. So as
long as the cartels continued to operate in this fashion, stopping the violence could have been
more straightforward had the Colombian state expanded its police force. However, the process
became completely convoluted by the mid-1990s. The weakening of the cartels, coupled with the
lack of imported Peruvian coca, changed the pattern of coca-based activities by non-state actors
and, therefore, violence. Because of this, there was a major shift in which municipalities had
active guerrilla/paramilitary groups, complicating the state’s ability to ensure the safety of its
citizens. The harbinger responsible for most of the distributive changes in the layout of
Colombian non-state actors was the air bridge policy introduced by Peruvian President, Alberto
Fujimori, which led to a major increase in Colombian coca production.
The Colombian government, in the lead up to Álvaro Uribe’s election, did not exercise
control over forty percent of its national territory. More importantly ‘brown areas’, usually
occupied by FARC, ELN and AUC were often responsible for the cultivation of illicit drugs46.
Uribe’s plan to strengthen the Colombian state was to increase the “presence of its military
forces and the National Police throughout all 1098 municipalities,” while simultaneously
46 Marcella, Gabriel, “The United States and Colombia: The Journey from Ambiguity to Strategic Clarity”. Carlisle,
Shaping the Regional Security Environment in America Series Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, (2003): p 7.

26
expanding the ability of the justice system47. At a more specific level, he sought to have a
minimum of 46 police officers in each municipal capital less than one year after his election48. In
the same time span, he aimed to raise the number of total professional police officials from
79,000 to 100,000. This sort of raise meant that there would be 4,300 police officers per million
people, a rate 72% higher than that found in the United States at the time. The increase in state
capacity came, not just in the form of standard police officers, but in the form of various
specialized military groups. This entire state expansion operation is known more formally as
Colombia’s ‘Democratic Security Policy’.
In order to bolster the effectiveness of the state, the democratic security policy allowed
for the creation of many specialized forces, which were implemented throughout Colombian
brown areas. The government formed nine mobile brigades with the specific purpose of
concentrating in counterterrorism situations. They were reserved for the most violent parts of the
country, which included but weren’t limited to Meta, Arauca, Putumayo y Norte de Santander.
Additionally, a Commando Brigade was created in order to capture terrorist leaders, which are
those who hold a regional or central position of power within FARC, ELN or AUC. Next, six
mountain battalions were implemented, whose primary focus was to cut off communication
channels for terrorist groups. If these groups actually operated near mountain ranges, they were
most likely deployed in the eastern part of departments like Caquetá, Meta and Putumayo. 582
Peasant Soldier Platoons were introduced with the formation of two infantry brigades 49 .
Although this group was the least militaristic of all of the aforementioned forces, it was the
largest and perhaps served the most important goal. Essentially, the Peasant Soldier Platoons
47 Perdomo, Jose R. “Columbia's Democratic Security and Defense Policy in the Demobilization of the
Paramilitaries” ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA, (2007): p 8.
48 Marcella, Gabriel (2003): p 18.
49 Data provided by Operations Army Department of Colombian Army, E-3.

27
would operate like militias. Their jurisdiction was local and their goal was “to protect every city
in the region in order to strengthen governance by supporting civilian authority and the
application of the law 50 . This group, also referred to as the “Town Soldier” program,
incorporated both men and women into a public security force. By December 2003, the program
existed in 450 municipalities, which is almost half of the country’s total municipalities.
In addition to expanding the types of Colombian military groups, Uribe’s democratic
security policy called for an increase the number of soldiers by 50,000 between 2002 and 2004.
Moreover, the policy also used a good part of the defense budget on military vehicles, with the
number of helicopters climbing from 18 in 1998 to 172 by the end of his first four months in
office51. The overhaul in state spending on defense was successful in that by 2004, state presence
had expanded to all 1,098 municipalities for the first time in Colombian history. Uribe’s first
term in office was a success not just with regards to military expansion, but also with a reduction
in anti-state forces. The military conducted more than 8,300 operations in 2002, shrinking the
FARC military forces by about 3,400 via killings, captures and deserters. The funding for most
of these programs came from (1) the growth in defense spending as a fraction of GDP, from 3.5
percent to 5.6 percent by the end of 200652, (2) the United States foreign aid and (3) from Uribe’s
one-time “wealth tax”, which earmarked $800 million for security forces. Upon declaring a state
of emergency in Colombia, Uribe introduced this new, 1.2 percent, tax to those with at least
$65,000 in liquid assets (approximately 400,000 people). Another major portion of military
50 Perdomo, Jose R. (2007): p 9.
51 Marcella, Gabriel, “The United States and Colombia: The Journey from Ambiguity to Strategic Clarity”. Strategic
Studies Institute (2003): p. 44
52 Shifter, Michael, and Vinay Jawahar. "State building in Colombia: getting priorities straight." Journal of
International Affairs (2004): p 146.

28
funding, aside from general expansion, went towards fielding armed volunteers, which was ten
times more expensive than fielding a standard soldier53.
Specialization gave Uribe’s policy a proactive approach. Of the 100 or so counter-
guerilla battalions (BCG), a significant portion of them had individual functions. Some BCGs
were located in high altitude regions and were meant to block transport routes for FARC and
ELN while others were located along roads and bridges for that same region. Forces named
Soldados de mi Pueblo (Home Guards) worked in urban centers and as security forces. Connie
Veillette, in ‘Plan Colombia: a progress report’ mentions the exact number of Colombian troops
added to regions. “The Colombian National Police has trained and deployed 9,176 officers to
rural areas, 8,166 to protect major roadways, and 397 to defend 12 of the country’s 16 petroleum
pipelines.54” State forces in guerrilla sponsored, coca-producing regions like Putumayo and
Caquetá were tasked with eliminating illicit crops and illicit drug infrastructure. By 2002, the
Colombian Antinarcotics Police:
(H)ad destroyed 61 cocaine hydrochloric (HCL) labs, 330 cocaine base labs, 5 heroin
and 9 other drug or precursor chemical processing facilities; had put 54 clandestine
airstrips out of service; and had seized or destroyed almost 30 metric tons of cocaine
HCL, base cocaine and basuco (low-grade cocaine byproduct)55.
For Uribe, labeling his defense policy as a counterterrorist movement rather than a
counternarcotic moment speaks volumes about the type of tasks important to his administration.
Historically, movements that have worked against drug organizations have done so with little
success. According to Dan Werb’s “Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence”,
53 Marks, Thomas A. "A Model Counterinsurgency: Uribe’s Colombia (2002–2006) vs FARC." Stability Operations
in the Western Hemisphere (2007): p 47-48.
54 Veillette, Connie. "Plan Colombia: A progress report." LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (2005): CRS-7
55 Ibid, 47.

29
Australia, as well as many parts of the United States, has failed at preventing drug-related
homicides. In fact, Werb “suggests drug law enforcement contributes to gun violence and high
homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organizations involved
in drug distribution could paradoxically increase violence.56” A reason for violence could be
connected to the thought that as drug dealers are taken out of the market, those willing to work in
a high-risk, high-reward environment will enter. Conversely, if there is already an established
monopoly over drug production, then Werb’s analysis might not apply. Uribe’s commitment to
strengthening police and military forces may have been more focused at scaring coca-producing
organization away rather than fighting with them.
Another way Uribe’s policy was brilliant was that its main objective was to expand the
military, not eliminate coca production. Although coca destruction was a small portion of the
Colombian and US strategy, a number of articles suggest that this was a less useful tactic and
was capable of producing more violence. Looking at the aforementioned Holmes (2006) article,
it seems apparent that eliminating coca was likely to lead to higher rates of violence, though it is
not clear whether one caused the other directly57. Werb et al (2011) and Holmes both suggest
that demand-side drug elimination is almost entirely ineffective from a safety perspective.
Uribe’s primary goal was clear: peace. “Without peace, there is no investment. Without
investment, there are no fiscal resources for the government to invest in the welfare of the
people”58. Thankfully for Uribe, the US shifted its foreign policy goals after September 11th
attacks.
56 Werb, Dan, et al. "Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: A systematic review." International
Journal of Drug Policy 22.2 (2011): p 87-94.
in Colombia: A department-level analysis." Latin American Politics & Society 48.3 (2006): 180.
58 Uribe Defends Security Policy." BBC News. BBC, (2004) 08 Jan. 2016.

30
Prior to 2001, the Clinton and H.W. Bush administrations focused on drug prohibition
with President Pastrana, which ultimately failed. The terrorist attacks on September 11th made
the Colombia’s all-powerful northern neighbor rethink their counternarcotic policies.
Specifically, in the summer of 2002, “the US Congress passed an emergency supplemental
spending bill…US security assistance can be used against ‘organizations designated as terrorist
organizations.’”59 The alteration of this policy allowed Uribe’s counterterrorism to be far more
effective, giving Colombia access to US training, tactics and weaponry. In spite of Uribe’s
strategic acumen and US assistance, realizing Colombia’s geographical layout is an important
aspect of counterterrorism strategy.
Of the twenty-six brigades that received aid from the United States, three of the four most
assisted brigades worked within departments that were not bordering the departments containing
major Colombian cities (Bogota D.C. or Medellín) or markets: Guaviare, Meta, Arauca and
Caquetá. Aside from their distance to major centers of commerce in Colombia, these
departments were located on the other side of massive mountain ranges. A geographical map of
Colombia would show a mountain separating the commerce-friendly and well-connected West
from the less-populated lowlands of the East. Although not as clear, maps that look at the
location of various military groups believe that the FARC’s heaviest concentration is in
Guaviare, Meta and Caquetá while the ELN is most heavily concentrated in Arauca. These four
departments are prime examples of poorer, less-populated regions that did not have the
governmental support to resist guerrilla takeover. The geographical importance of non-state actor
operations with regards to economic opportunity was reinforced in Holmes’ other article, “Guns,
Drugs & Development”: “The rugged topography of Colombia has often been cited as both a
59 Amnesty International. "Colombia A Laboratory of War: Repression and Violence in Arauca, Amnesty
International." (2004), 8 Jan. 2016.

31
barrier to effective national integration.” A lack of communication as a result of poor
transportation and technology infrastructure is partially to blame for FARC, ELN, and AUC
prevalence60. In planning his counterterrorism policy, Uribe must have also known what areas
became radically less violent.
President Uribe’s counterterrorism defense policy was successful because of its varied
perspective. Increasing police presence, generally speaking, was a smart idea, but the location
and direction of military forces was imperative to the operation’s accomplishments. The Uribe
administration needed to have a total understanding of the guerrilla/paramilitary effectiveness
and the coca system prior to enacting his policies. Information was paramount for the Uribe
government, and its proper utilization led to the mitigation of FARC, ELN and AUC and, with it,
the capability of coca production. More importantly, Uribe’s push for governmental expansion
into the less inhabited and poorer parts of the country allowed national Colombian integration for
the first time in history. The objective of the expansion was multifaceted. In areas where
government presence was strong and people were living comfortably, there was less likely to be
guerrilla or paramilitary support. The governmental expansion was meant to introduce unfamiliar
Colombians to the government via elimination of FARC, ELN, and AUC. Integrated
departments that have more governmental support tend to be better off economically. The
eradication of guerrilla and paramilitary groups had the dual effect of reasserting the state in
formerly unoccupied territories and providing new opportunities to allow the country to grow its
economy.
Nevertheless, President Uribe has received considerable flack for being too lenient on
former AUC members with regards to their prison sentencing, or lack thereof. An essential
60 Holmes, Jennifer S., Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres, and Kevin M. Curtin. “Guns, drugs,and development in
Colombia” University of Texas Press, (2010): p 13.

32
addition to the negotiations with AUC was offering lighter sentencing for those fighters who
willingly demobilized. Namely, the JPL, or the Justice and Peace Law, inspired the most
controversy. Implemented in July of 2005, the JPL was the final piece in solving AUC
demobilization. The highly successful policy allowed for many thousands of AUC fighters to
hang up their weapons in exchange for serving a lesser sentence. The JPL, in part, helped
encourage the demobilization of 32,000 AUC troops between 2003 and 2006. Nonetheless, it is
unclear whether Uribe’s expansion of state forces was as effective with regards to mitigating
AUC presence as it was to mitigating ELN and FARC presence. Because there was generally
less conflict with AUC, it is logical to assume that police and army presence in AUC territory
was less critical. Given AUC’s non-traditional relationship with President Uribe’s democratic
security policy, I would expect the data to reflect this in one way or another. This most likely
means that the relationship between national transfers and paramilitary presence will be less
negative than it would be for FARC or ELN.
The creation of the democratic security policy under President Álvaro Uribe helped
thwart the growing influence of violent non-state actors throughout the Colombian state. By
implementing more police forces in addition to specialized military brigades, the Uribe
administration effectively decreased the number of non-state actors actively operating in
municipalities. Although the demise of AUC could be partially attributed to peace negotiations
with the government, the hypothesis of this thesis, which will be tested in Part 2, is that Uribe’s
state expansion led to the fall of non-state actors in Colombia after 2002.

33
Part 2
Data Description
To measure the presence of the three major non-state actors in Colombia: FARC, ELN,
and AUC, I use the data from the Centro de Estudios sobre Desarrollo Económico (CEDE) in the
Facultad de Economía at the University de Los Andes in Bogotá. The presence of these three
groups is evaluated as three binary valuables, meaning that they are either present in a
municipality, or they are not. This data does not speak to the size of the forces in a particular
area, which is far more difficult to accurately measure. FARC is present in the most number of
municipalities in Colombia and can be found just right of the center of the country. It controls
coca fields in Putumayo in the South and the oil fields along the Venezuelan border. The other
guerilla group, ELN, is the smallest group in terms of municipal spread and it operates mainly
along the Venezuelan border. AUC is a paramilitary group that operated throughout Colombia’s
Western region. Graphs regarding the exact location of these groups can be found at the end of
this thesis.
In order to see the effect of President Álvaro Uribe’s policies, I used municipal homicide
rate data and coca production data to separate municipalities into two groups: affected and not
affected by Uribe’s policies. Homicide rate data are available from 1993 through 2013, and are
measured in homicides per 100,000 people by the Colombian police. Municipal coca production
is available from 2001 through 2006 and is provided by the CEDE as well. Interestingly, there
were two sources for the data regarding municipal coca production between 2001 and 2006, the
aforementioned CEDE and the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). Since the
majority of other data came from CEDE and because the CEDE data was more extensive, it
proved to work better statistically, than did the UN data.

34
According to the literature I gathered, none of the previous studies empirically evalutate
the effect of Uribe’s policy on the presence of non-state actors at a municipal level. As a proxy
for explaining improvements to local police and military capacity, I use national transfers, which
reflect funds given to a municipality from strictly the national government (not the provincial
government). The data also comes from CEDE, which covers the 1993 – 2013 time period and is
measured in millions of pesos. To adjust for the size of municipality, I divide national transfers
by the population in each municipality. Population data is provided by the Departamento
Administrativo Nacion de Estadística (DANE). Total income, or municipal GDP, also comes
from the CEDE panel data and is also measured in millions of pesos. Similarly to national
transfers, total income is adjusted by population. Since both national transfers and income, are
nominal variables, I convert them into real using national Consumer Price Index (CPI), which
comes from the Banco Central De Colombia (www.banrep.gov.co).
Police work is an aggregate variable that is the sum of the number of captured, armed,
non-state actors, dismantled laboratories, guerrilla deserters, weapons seized, hostages released,
counternarcotic operations, raids, individuals rescued from kidnapping between 1993 and 2008.
All of these statistics are found in the CEDE municipal panel database. Rurality index comes
from the CEDE database and is the rural population of a municipality divided by the total
population of a community. Capital Expenditure (Investment) is available from 1993 through
2013 and, like national transfers and GDP, is adjusted for by population and CPI. The last two
variables that come from the CEDE database are distance to the capital of a department,
measured in kilometers, and altitude, which is taken from the highest point in a municipality and
measured in meters above sea level. Because this data is time invariant, they do not change over
time, so there is no need to use that data from different years.

35
Model
The main question this thesis asks is whether Uribe’s policies, which increased state
capacity, negatively affected the presence of guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombian
municipalities. Since there were three major non-state actors operating in Colombia when Uribe
entered office, it is important to estimate three separate regressions, where the presence of each
group is used as the primary dependent variable. Considering there were major geographical and
political differences between the three organizations, distinguishing between them made for
some valuable findings. In addition to using Stata, ArcGIS allowed me to map the location of
these three violent Colombian actors from 1993 to 2008, allowing for a complementary
understanding of where Uribe’s policies were effective.
The focus of President Álvaro Uribe’s democratic security policy was to eliminate the
presence of armed, non-state actors throughout the nation. Expanding Colombian security meant
literally increasing the size and capability of state forces, including the military and the police.
However, gauging where security enhancements and expansion happened was challenging. After
reviewing a large number of sources, it appears that no scholar has been able to operationalize
Uribe’s military changes. This was due in large part to the fact that there were no municipal
police forces; there were only departmental police forces. It was unclear which localities saw an
increase in security capability. Despite the lack of data, I devised a possible solution to the issue.
In place of having actual information regarding police/military increases, I use surges in national
transfers as a proxy: if a municipality is fighting guerrilla or paramilitary control, then it is
logical to think that that municipality would receive an increase in national transfers once
Uribe’s began his term as president. As a result I estimate the following equation:
𝑌𝑖𝑡 = 𝛼𝑖 + 𝜆 𝑡 + 𝛽1 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡 + 𝛾𝑋 + 𝑒𝑖𝑡. (1)

36
where 𝑌𝑖𝑡 indicates the presence of the paramilitary or guerrilla group in municipality i at time t.
It is a binary variable that takes a value of 1 if a paramilitary or guerrilla group is present in
municipality i at time t and zero otherwise. 𝛼𝑖 and 𝜆 𝑡 are municipal and time fixed effects.
Municipal fixed effects are used to control for the time-invariant, unobservable characteristics of
each municipality, while time fixed effects control for general time trend common across
municipalities. 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑠 is the primary independent variable observed in this
regression. 𝛾 X is comprised of the investment (capital expenditure), GDP, the rural index
(percent of individuals living in a rural area as a percentage of total municipal population) and a
variable called ‘Police Work’ which is the summation of various police activities that relate to
working against non-state actors. I start by estimating the equation (1) using all municipalities.
The estimated coefficient 𝛽1 is interpreted as an average effect, i.e. if transfers increase by 1%
what is the effect of these transfers on the probability of presence of non-state actors in an
average municipality. It is clear that some municipalities have heavier presence of non-state
actors than others. Therefore, to address this uneven distribution I use the following procedure to
split the municipalities that were likelier to be targeted by Uribe’s policies (affected
municipalities) and municipalities that were not targeted by Uribe’s policies (non-affected
municipalities). To determine affected municipalities I use two separate procedures. The first
determines the presence of non-state actors using homicide rate and second uses the growth rate
of coca production.
Homicide rate. First, I calculate the average homicide rate between 1993 and 2001 and
between 2002 and 2008. Municipalities that saw a lower than average decrease in homicide rates
were ‘affected’ and those that saw a higher than average decrease in homicide rate were ‘non-
affected’. The majority sources used in the historical background chapter recognizes that

37
abnormally high homicide rates were often related to the presence of guerrilla and paramilitary
groups. Uribe recognized this correlation and is believed to have aimed his state expansion in
regions where violence was abnormally large (where the state was the weakest).
Coca production. In addition to using homicide rates to label affected municipalities, I
also use the growth rate of coca production to differentiate between ‘affected’ and ‘non-affected’
municipalities. First, I calculate the growth rate of coca production for each municipality. Then, I
split the municipalities into those that had more than average growth rate of coca production –
‘affected’ municipalities – and those that had less than average growth rate – ‘non-affected’
municipalities. While homicide rate works well in separating ‘affected’ from ‘non-affected’
municipalities in each of the three non-state groups, coca production does not. Considering that
FARC was the only group that had consistent ties to the coca trade, using coca production to
separate ‘affected’ and ‘non-affected’ municipalities only works accurately for that organization.
After organizing the municipalities into ‘affected’ and ‘non-affected’ I re-estimate the
equation (1) separately for these two groups using four different dependent variables. First I test
the effect of National Transfers on the presence of any paramilitary or guerrilla group, i.e.
presence of FARC, or ELN, or AUC. Second, I separately test the effect of NationalTransfers on
the presence of FARC, presence of ELN, and presence of AUC. This allows me to observe
which paramilitary or guerrilla group was most affected by the state presence brought by
President Uribe.
I expect the results from both regression equations to be similar, mainly with regards to
national transfers. If the models work properly and the hypothesis is correct, President Uribe’s
policy of increasing national transfers to municipalities had a negative effect on the presence of
the non-state actors.

38
Results
To confirm the significant effect of Álvaro Uribe’s democratic security policy, there
needs to be a negative relationship between national transfers and non-state actor presence.
However, my hypothesis predicts that this relationship will be negative only after 2002 and only
in the affected municipalities. For example, if Puerto Asis, located in the department of
Putumayo, was an ‘affected’ area, it should have seen the likelihood of guerilla and paramilitary
presence fall as national transfers increased after 2002. Conversely, prior to 2002 – before Uribe
was president – I expected this relationship to be insignificant, since guerrilla and paramilitary
presence climbed in the years before Uribe. I expected the same, insignificant or less negative
relationship for the ‘non-affected’ municipalities both before and after 2002.
I first combine all three insurgent groups into one variable (called ‘any’), which is also a
binary variable, equal to ‘1’ if there are any of the three insurgent groups operating within the
municipality in a given, otherwise, it is equal to ‘0’. Table 1 shows that when using ‘any’ as the
dependent variable in the coca regression, there is a significant and negative relationship between
national transfers and the presence of non-state actors. In ‘affected’ municipalities after 2002, a
10% increase in national transfers leads to a 1.1p.p reduction in the probability of presence of
any guerrilla or paramilitary group. More importantly, I observe no significant relationship
between national transfers and insurgent presence for any other period-group combination (‘non-
affected’ before 2002, ‘non-affected’ after 2002’, ‘affected’ before 2002). I find a similar
relationship in the homicide regression, although to a lesser degree. The results presented in
Table 2, show that a 10% increase in national transfers leads to only a 0.6p.p. reduction in the
probability of presence of any guerrilla or paramilitary group.

39
The connections between investment, GDP and police work with guerrilla/paramilitary
presence varies by regression. For example, the results from Table 1 show that with a 10%
increase in investment, there is a 0.4p.p. increase in the probability of presence of any guerrilla
or paramilitary group in ‘non-affected’ municipalities before 2002. The homicide rate regression
in Table 2 shows that in ‘affected’ municipalities, an increase in investment led to an increase in
the probability of presence of any guerrilla or paramilitary group before 2002 and a decrease in
the probability of presence of any guerrilla or paramilitary group after 2002. Additionally, GDP
further demonstrates the differences between the results from the coca regressions in Table 1 and
the homicide rate regressions in Table 2. Table 1 presents that an increase in GDP will lead to a
decrease in the probability of presence of any guerrilla or paramilitary group for every group of
municipalities except in ‘affected’ municipalities after 2002. The Table 2 results show that an
increase in GDP will lead to a decrease in the probability of presence of any guerrilla or
paramilitary group, but only in ‘unaffected’ communities before 2002. Police work provides me
with some more interesting results. Results of each regression showed that police work was
positively correlated with the probability of presence of any guerrilla or paramilitary group in
both ‘affected’ and ‘non-affected’ municipalities, before and after 2002. The most interesting
relationship between these two tests is in the coca regression, the positive relationship between
police work and the probability of guerrilla or paramilitary presence fell in ‘affected’
municipalities after 2002, but in the homicide rate regression, the positive coefficient increased
in ‘affected’ municipalities after 2002. Although there are major dissimilarities between the two
regressions, breaking the ‘any’ variable down into FARC, ELN and AUC presence will provide
clearer results.

40
First, I report the results when FARC presence is used as the dependent variable. The
results are presented in Tables 3 and 4. Out of each of the three terrorist organizations, FARC
regressions show the greatest and most significant negative relationship between national
transfers and the probability of FARC presence. In the coca growth regressions, in ‘affected’
municipalities after 2002, for every 10% increase in national transfers, there is a 1.6p.p. decrease
in the probability of FARC presence. This means that a 10% increase in national transfers makes
FARC 1.6% less likely to operate within a municipality. It is also important to mention that there
is no relationship between national transfers and FARC presence for any other period (‘non-
affected’ before 2002, ‘non-affected’ after 2002’, ‘affected’ before 2002). Similar results are
observed in the homicide rate regression, Table 4, although the coefficient is smaller. ‘Affected’
municipalities after 2002 see a 0.7p.p. fall in the probability of FARC presence when there is a
10% gain in national transfers.
The results for ELN, an organization with similar operations and origins to FARC, are
presented in Tables 5 and 6. Table 5, the coca growth regression, shows that in ‘affected’
municipalities after 2002, a 10% increase in national transfers leads to a 1p.p. fall in the
probability of ELN presence; Table 6, the homicide rate regression, shows that in ‘affected’
municipalities after 2002, a 10% increase in national transfers leads to an 0.8p.p. drop in the
probability of ELN presence. Results for ELN were not perfect, however. Within the homicide
rate regression, ‘non-affected’ municipalities after 2002 also saw a negative and significant
relationship with national transfers. Although, it is important to note that the coefficient is
significantly smaller in the ‘non-affected’ municipalities with a 10% increase in national
transfers leads to a 0.3p.p. decrease in the probability of ELN presence. This finding might

41
suggest that using homicide rate to designate ‘affected’ municipalities may have some
shortcomings.
The results for AUC are presented in Tables 7 and 8. AUC regression results are less
clear than both FARC’s and ELN’s. Table 8, the homicide rate regression, shows that for every
10% increase in national transfers there is almost a 0.7p.p. decrease in the likelihood of AUC
presence. Unfortunately, in the coca growth regression, Table 8, there is no significant
relationship between national transfers and the likelihood of AUC presence.
There are a couple of explanations for why there is no result for national transfers if
‘affected’ municipalities are designated based on coca growth. AUC had a history that was
entirely different from FARC and ELN. Operating as a paramilitary group, not a guerrilla
organization, AUC was initially allowed to operate as a communal self-defense group in areas
where state forces were absent. Although AUC eventually became a sort of mercenary group,
offering protecting to private interests, the group publicly revealed that it would no longer
involve itself in the coca trade in 2002. AUC’s perceived lack of involvement in the coca trade
may explain why the results from the coca growth regression are insignificant. Considering the
proportion of AUC-active municipalities without coca growth to municipalities with coca growth
is larger compared to the proportions of FARC or ELN, it makes sense that the coca growth
regression might not be properly suited to represent the paramilitary organization (despite ELN
also suggesting it was not involved in the coca trade, figures 4 and 7 suggest that the group
operated almost entirely in regions where coca was grown).
Another issue may have to do with national transfers. Uribe was able to successfully
negotiate with AUC and helped introduced laws that encouraged the group’s demobilization.
Negotiations with FARC and ELN did not go as swimmingly. As a result of failing negotiations,

42
Uribe increased the police and military presence of localities that had either FARC or ELN
presence, but less so in areas with AUC presence. This irregularity may explain why national
transfers would not have applied to many AUC-active municipalities.
Variables other than national transfers are used to control for differences in the presence
of non-state actors across municipalities. In the coca regressions, I find that there is a positive
relationship between police work and the probability of ELN and AUC presence in affected
communities after 2002, Tables 5 and 7. I observe the same result in the homicide rate equations
with ELN and AUC (Tables 6 and 8), but with an interesting twist. In Tables 5 and 7, the
positive relationship between police work and the probability of ELN or AUC presence was
lower in ‘affected’ municipalities after 2002 than it was in ‘affected’ municipalities before 2002.
However, in Tables 6 and 8, the positive relationship between the two variables increased from
‘affected’ municipalities before 2002 to after 2002.
This dilemma makes having a definitive conclusion about the effect of police work
difficult. Regardless, the data still allows me to make a couple of inferences about its effect.
Police work is an aggregate measure of some variables that represent police activity against
armed, non-state actors. Given this information, it is necessary to ask why does police work yield
a positive relationship and national transfers yield a negative relationship with non-state actor
likelihood? Werb et al’s “Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence” finds that as
drug law enforcement intensity increases, so does drug market violence. Following this logic, the
more drug law enforcement that occurs in an area should yield more violence and, ergo, a higher
likelihood of non-state actor presence. Werb’s finding would not apply to national transfers
because there is nothing indicating that national transfers increase drug law enforcement
operations, only police and military presence. Moreover, the police and military may have been

43
more effective at scaring away guerrilla groups with their size rather than with their ability to
fight.
GDP’s insignificance is another variable that does not match with the conventional
wisdom surrounding the Uribe reforms. In the FARC and ELN homicide rate regressions (Tables
4 and 6), GDP shows no significance. For the AUC regressions, there is a negative significant
relationship between GDP and the likelihood of paramilitary presence in ‘affected’
municipalities before 2002. The GDP results are equally as confusing in the coca growth
regressions. While it remains insignificant in the FARC regression, it is negative and significant
in ELN regression. An increase in GDP by 10% reduces the probability of presence of ELN in a
given municipality by around 0.4%. These results don’t give a clear indication of the probability
of any guerrilla or paramilitary presence and income level of a municipality. Nevertheless, I
believe it is important to control for income difference between municipalities.
The results from this thesis confirm my initial hypothesis, that Uribe’s security policies,
which are explained by the increase in national transfers, decreased the likelihood of the
presence of non-state actors in specific municipalities. Additionally, finding a similar correlation
with two separate models further confirms the veracity of this relationship. This finding indicates
that it is plausible to use state contributions to municipalities as a proxy for President Uribe’s
democratic security policy. Although, it is unclear which specific municipalities were targeted by
the democratic security policy, the literature mentions the implementation of various police and
military outfits, which operated near mountains or close to roads, I found little mention of
specifically where these groups operated or were effective. Common knowledge led me to think
that regions with coca growth and regions with higher than average homicide rates would have
been a government target for national transfers.

44
Conclusion
The democratic security policy introduced Colombia to an episode of state-building it had
not seen before. President Álvaro Uribe, unlike his predecessors, sought to increase the
legitimacy of the state through military and police expansion. The nature of the state growth was
complex, as Uribe’s democratic security policy was a multifaceted approach to the problem of
violent non-state actors. The program introduced both widespread police presence and many
specialized military groups into various regions of the country. Each of these groups, whether
they were meant to operate near mountains or in more rural regions, were responsible for state
growth via the elimination of non-state actors. The primary aim of this thesis was to test the
knowledge surrounding the termination of these actors following 2002. After using econometric
regression analysis, it is clear that President Uribe’s policies, as defined by his democratic
security policy, which increased in national transfers to specific municipalities, reduced the
presence of armed, non-state actor and made Colombia a safer nation.
The use of national transfers as a proxy for Uribe’s policy has served as an important
contribution to the literature surrounding the fight against non-state actors in South America. The
most significant challenge for this project was trying to show how the democratic security
policies worked. Despite knowing that Uribe increased police or military capacity, there is little
data showing these state changes. The national transfers variable proved to be an accurate
representation of the Uribe security policies, as it displayed a negative relationship in five out of
six possible regressions. More importantly, national transfers had a negative relationship with
non-state actor presence in two separate regressions; one where coca growth designated
‘affected’ municipalities and one where homicide rates designated ‘affected’ municipalities.

45
Outside of Colombia, this thesis could work to help develop policies for countries
struggling with similar issues regarding non-state actors. Mexico, who is currently experiencing
a dilemma very similar to Colombia’s, would likely benefit from swiftly increased state police
and military expansion. What made Colombia’s policies against non-state actors so effective was
the rapid implementation of various police and military forces. Without adequate time to prepare
for such a major overhaul in state capacity, FARC, ELN, and AUC were quickly caught off
guard and put on the defensive. If Mexico was to pursue military and police expansions swiftly,
rather than gradually introduce them over ten years, this could prove to be very effective at
weakening cartels. Moreover, if Mexico was to label the drug cartels as terrorist groups, not as
trafficking organization, this might draw more sympathy from the United States who would be
more willing to provide security-based foreign aid. However, lessons from Colombia might not
apply to the situation in Syria. Unlike Colombia, the Syrian government has little international
support and, thusly, would be unfit to replace ISIS forces in brown areas. Generally speaking, the
Colombian prescription for countering non-state actor is less inclined to work in states with
questionable political leadership.

46
Tables and Figures
Figure 1
Figure 2

51
Table 1: Probability of Any Guerrilla or Paramilitary Presence Using Coca Growth Rate to
Determine Affected Municipalities.
All Municipalities Affected Municipalities Non-affected Municipalities
Before 2002 After 2002 Before 2002 After 2002 Before 2002 After 2002
Nat. Transfer 0.007 -0.013 -0.010 -0.112*** 0.009 -0.008
(0.010) (0.011) (0.025) (0.037) (0.011) (0.010)
Investment 0.035*** 0.000 -0.029 0.010 0.042*** 0.004
(0.011) (0.017) (0.026) (0.042) (0.011) (0.018)
Police Work 0.143*** 0.148*** 0.085*** 0.031*** 0.150*** 0.171***
(0.009) (0.006) (0.023) (0.010) (0.009) (0.007)
GDP -0.057*** -0.058*** -0.069* 0.057 -0.054*** -0.067***
(0.014) (0.018) (0.038) (0.044) (0.015) (0.019)
Rural 0.076 0.131** -0.282* -0.166 0.087 0.156***
(0.056) (0.051) (0.159) (0.137) (0.058) (0.053)
FE YES YES YES YES YES YES
Within-R2 0.274 0.358 0.164 0.25 0.279 0.361
Observations 3925 4261 397 522 3528 3739
Note: Dependent variable is any guerrilla or paramilitary presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise).
Robust Standard errors in parentheses, * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

52
Table 2: Probability of Any Guerrilla or Paramilitary Presence Using Homicide Rate to
Determine Affected Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer -0.003 -0.031 -0.002 -0.058* -0.003 -0.025
(0.009) (0.026) (0.023) (0.034) (0.009) (0.028)
Investment 0.02 -0.057*** 0.037** -0.075** 0.009 -0.041
(0.012) (0.020) (0.019) (0.030) (0.016) (0.028)
Police Work 0.069*** 0.088*** 0.050*** 0.086*** 0.081*** 0.088***
(0.010) (0.008) (0.015) (0.013) (0.014) (0.011)
GDP -0.031* 0.000 -0.007 0.027 -0.048** -0.012
(0.017) (0.031) (0.031) (0.048) (0.022) (0.037)
Rural -0.869*** 3.855*** -0.966** 4.790*** -0.864** 3.260***
(0.296) (0.654) (0.467) (0.932) (0.383) (0.843)
Within-R2 0.023 0.055 0.022 0.081 0.026 0.044
Observations 4096 4356 1658 1633 2438 2723
Note: Dependent variable is any guerrilla or paramilitary presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise).
Robust Standard errors in parentheses, * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

53
Table 3: Probability of FARC Presence Using Coca Growth Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer 0.004 -0.031 0.023 -0.163*** 0.003 -0.017
(0.009) (0.028) (0.034) (0.056) (0.010) (0.023)
Investment 0.020 -0.043** -0.053 -0.022 0.029** -0.046*
(0.013) (0.021) (0.032) (0.050) (0.014) (0.024)
Police Work 0.076*** 0.073*** 0.048 0.026 0.079*** 0.082***
(0.012) (0.009) (0.029) (0.016) (0.013) (0.010)
GDP -0.026 0.020 -0.053 0.131** -0.023 -0.003
(0.019) (0.032) (0.058) (0.063) (0.020) (0.034)
Rural -0.742** 3.573*** -1.563* 1.025 -0.604 3.776***
(0.353) (0.682) (0.808) (1.338) (0.392) (0.745)
Within-R2 0.020 0.039 0.027 0.036 0.021 0.045
Observations 4096 4356 417 547 3679 3809
Note: Dependent variable is FARC presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors
in parentheses, * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

54
Table 4: Probability of FARC Presence Using Homicide Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer 0.004 -0.031 0.009 -0.065* 0.003 -0.023
(0.009) (0.028) (0.024) (0.035) (0.009) (0.029)
Investment 0.02 -0.043** 0.026 -0.070** 0.017 -0.018
(0.013) (0.021) (0.021) (0.033) (0.017) (0.028)
Police Work 0.076*** 0.073*** 0.075*** 0.057*** 0.076*** 0.079***
(0.012) (0.009) (0.019) (0.014) (0.015) (0.011)
GDP -0.026 0.02 -0.022 0.075 -0.029 -0.005
(0.019) (0.032) (0.034) (0.055) (0.024) (0.037)
Rural -0.742** 3.573*** -1.150* 5.642*** -0.483 2.354***
(0.353) (0.682) (0.61) (1.036) (0.431) (0.825)
Within-R2 0.02 0.039 0.023 0.063 0.018 0.031
Observations 4096 4356 1658 1633 2438 2723
Note: Dependent variable is FARC presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors

55
Table 5: Probability of ELN Presence Using Coca Growth Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer 0.008 -0.01 0.01 -0.096** 0.009 -0.004
(0.009) (0.007) (0.027) (0.041) (0.01) (0.008)
Investment 0.01 -0.003 -0.03 -0.042 0.014 0.006
(0.009) (0.016) (0.025) (0.048) (0.01) (0.018)
Police Work 0.097*** 0.083*** 0.055** 0.030* 0.100*** 0.090***
(0.01) (0.007) (0.026) (0.016) (0.01) (0.008)
GDP -0.02 -0.041** -0.051 0.045 -0.014 -0.048***
(0.015) (0.017) (0.044) (0.052) (0.016) (0.017)
Rural -0.065 0.019 -0.385 -0.116 -0.054 0.018
(0.052) (0.047) (0.253) (0.205) (0.053) (0.048)
Within-R2 0.162 0.156 0.13 0.098 0.158 0.147
Observations 3925 4261 397 522 3528 3739
Note: Dependent variable is ELN presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors in
parentheses, * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

56
Table 6: Probability of ELN Presence Using Homicide Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer -0.001 -0.037*** -0.004 -0.078*** 0.002 -0.027***
(0.009) (0.011) (0.028) (0.028) (0.008) (0.009)
Investment 0.009 -0.044** 0.036* -0.094*** -0.008 -0.004
(0.011) (0.022) (0.019) (0.029) (0.013) (0.029)
Police Work 0.055*** 0.059*** 0.055*** 0.062*** 0.053*** 0.054***
(0.011) (0.008) (0.015) (0.014) (0.015) (0.009)
GDP 0.005 0.021 0.020 0.010 -0.005 0.024
0.018) (0.024) (0.034) (0.047) (0.022) (0.027)
Rural -0.235 2.143*** -0.237 2.762*** -0.227 1.608**
(0.347) (0.577) (0.505) (0.971) (0.470) (0.683)
Within-R2 0.013 0.033 0.017 0.056 0.012 0.023
Observations 4096 4356 1658 1633 2438 2723
Note: Dependent variable is ELN presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors in
parentheses, * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

57
Table 7: Probability of AUC Presence Using Coca Growth Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer -0.015* -0.024* -0.04 -0.048 -0.012 -0.025
(0.009) (0.015) (0.037) (0.042) (0.008) (0.015)
Investment 0.090*** -0.014 0.134*** -0.131** 0.087*** -0.005
(0.008) (0.020) (0.023) (0.055) (0.009) (0.021)
Police Work 0.057*** 0.086*** 0.053* 0.042** 0.061*** 0.088***
(0.007) (0.007) (0.029) (0.017) (0.007) (0.008)
GDP -0.052*** 0.028 -0.038 0.125** -0.052*** 0.024
(0.012) (0.018) (0.038) (0.056) (0.012) (0.019)
Rural -0.091*** -0.105** -0.166 -0.297* -0.092*** -0.098**
(0.026) (0.047) (0.151) (0.152) (0.026) (0.048)
Within-R2 0.109 0.193 0.069 0.220 0.121 0.168
Observations 3925 4261 397 522 3528 3739
Note: Dependent variable is AUC presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors

58
Table 8: Probability of AUC Presence Using Homicide Rate to Determine Affected
Municipalities.
Nat. Transfer -0.014 -0.008 -0.019 -0.069* -0.009 0.007
(0.009) (0.024) (0.023) (0.039) (0.009) (0.023)
Investment 0.046*** -0.112*** 0.035** -0.125*** 0.054*** -0.091***
(0.010) (0.026) (0.014) (0.043) (0.012) (0.031)
Police Work 0.039*** 0.053*** 0.061*** 0.071*** 0.02 0.038***
(0.010) (0.009) (0.016) (0.015) (0.012) (0.011)
GDP -0.054*** -0.019 -0.052* -0.008 -0.046*** -0.021
(0.015) (0.034) (0.029) (0.056) (0.016) (0.039)
Rural -2.944*** 6.333*** -4.689*** 8.921*** -1.742*** 4.645***
(0.535) (0.844) (0.763) (1.264) (0.591) (1.021)
Within-R2 0.123 0.065 0.183 0.114 0.086 0.038
Observations 4096 4356 1658 1633 2438 2723
Note: Dependent variable is AUC presence (=1 if present, 0 otherwise). Robust Standard errors

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