Guns, Drugs, and Development in Colombia

Guns, Drugs, and Development in Colombia PDF

Author: Jennifer S. Holmes

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0292779585

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For decades, Colombia has contended with a variety of highly publicized conflicts, including the rise of paramilitary groups in response to rebel insurgencies of the 1960s, the expansion of an illegal drug industry that has permeated politics and society since the 1970s, and a faltering economy in the 1990s. An unprecedented analysis of these struggles, Guns, Drugs, and Development in Colombia brings together leading scholars from a variety of fields, blending previously unseen quantitative data with historical analysis for an impressively comprehensive assessment. Culminating in an inspiring plan for peace, based on Four Cornerstones of Pacification, this landmark work is sure to spur new calls for change in this corner of Latin America and beyond.

More Terrible Than Death

More Terrible Than Death PDF

Author: Robin Kirk

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13:

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The only contemporary history of Colombia and the drug war and "a vividly written and often mesmerizing first-hand account of the violence" "--The Wall Street Journal"

Inside Colombia

Inside Colombia PDF

Author: Grace Livingstone

Publisher: Latin America Bureau (Lab)

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13:

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This work is an introduction to who's who and what is really happening in Colombia. In one volume, it brings together the best material published on the war, the economy, social impact and prospects of peace in Colombia. It sets out, in a clear journalistic style, the human rights and internal refugee crisis in the country, describes how Colombia fits into the foreign policy of the US and Europe, how drugs fuel the economy and the politics of the conflict, and provides a historical overview of key moments in the longest war in the hemisphere. Individual chapters focus on the human cost, history, economy and development, illicit cultivation of coca, plan Colombia and foreign involvement. The book includes maps, facts and figures, testimony, a who's who of the main actors involved in the conflict, lists of Colombian and foreign NGOs working in Colombia, further reading and web links.

Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats

Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats PDF

Author: Winifred Tate

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2015-06-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780804792011

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In 2000, the U.S. passed a major aid package that was going to help Colombia do it all: cut drug trafficking, defeat leftist guerrillas, support peace, and build democracy. More than 80% of the assistance, however, was military aid, at a time when the Colombian security forces were linked to abusive, drug-trafficking paramilitary forces. Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats examines the U.S. policymaking process in the design, implementation, and consequences of Plan Colombia, as the aid package came to be known. Winifred Tate explores the rhetoric and practice of foreign policy by the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, Congress, and the U.S. military Southern Command. Tate's ethnography uncovers how policymakers' utopian visions and emotional entanglements play a profound role in their efforts to orchestrate and impose social transformation abroad. She argues that U.S. officials' zero tolerance for illegal drugs provided the ideological architecture for the subsequent militarization of domestic drug policy abroad. The U.S. also ignored Colombian state complicity with paramilitary brutality, presenting them as evidence of an absent state and the authentic expression of a frustrated middle class. For rural residents of Colombia living under paramilitary dominion, these denials circulated as a form of state terror. Tate's analysis examines how oppositional activists and the policy's targets—civilians and local state officials in southern Colombia—attempted to shape aid design and delivery, revealing the process and effects of human rights policymaking.

Colombian Agency and the making of US Foreign Policy

Colombian Agency and the making of US Foreign Policy PDF

Author: Alvaro Mendez

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-06-26

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1317215729

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This book studies a significant event in US relations with Latin America, shedding light on the role of dependent states and their foreign policy agency in the process by which local concerns become intertwined with the dominant state’s foreign policy. Plan Colombia was a large-scale foreign aid programme through which the US intervened in the internal affairs of Colombia, by invitation. It proved to be one of the major successes of US foreign policy, and has been credited with stemming a potentially catastrophic security failure of the Colombian state. This book discusses the strategies and practices deployed by the Colombian government to influence US foreign policy decision making at the bureaucratic, legislative and executive levels, and is a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of small power agency. Giving a clearer insight into the decision making processes in both the US and Colombia, this book founds its argument on solid empirical analysis assembled from interviews of the major players in the events including: Andres Pastrana, President of Colombia; Thomas Pickering, US State Department; Arturo Valenzuela, Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the NSA; General Barry McCaffrey, the US ‘Drug Czar’; and Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Approaching the events in question from a bottom-up theoretical perspective that puts the emphasis on the facts of the case, this book will be of great interest to academics, students and policy makers in the field of foreign policy analysis, US foreign policy studies, and Latin American studies.

The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP)

The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) PDF

Author: Jonathan S. Lockwood

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-09-12

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1623567823

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The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) is a systematic technique for predicting short-term, unique behaviors. Using primarily qualitative empirical data, LAMP allows the analyst to predict the most likely outcomes for specific research questions across a wide range of intelligence problems, such as cyber threats in the U.S., the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack, the likelihood of Iran providing nuclear capability to terrorist groups, or the future actions of the Mexican drug cartel. LAMP offers an innovative and powerful method for organizing all available information based on the perceptions of the national actors, using it to make relevant predictions as to which alternate future is most likely to occur at a given moment in time. Its transparent structure enables anyone to see how an analyst gets from point A to point B to produce an intelligence estimate. LAMP differs from other analytical techniques in that it is based on determining the relative probability of a range of alternate futures, rather than attempting to determine the quantitative probability of their occurrence. After explaining its theoretical framework, the text leads the reader through the process of predictive analysis before providing practical case studies showing how LAMP is applied against real world problems, such as the possible responses of Israel, the U.S., and Lebanon to the behavior of Hezbollah or the competing visions of the future of Afghanistan. Evaluation of the method is provided with the case studies to show the effectiveness of the LAMP predictions over time. The book is complemented by a website with downloadable software for use by students of intelligence in conducting their own predictive analysis. It will be an essential tool for the analyst and the student, not only for national security issues but also for competitive intelligence.

Drugs and Democracy in Latin America

Drugs and Democracy in Latin America PDF

Author: Coletta Youngers

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 9781588262547

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While the U.S. has failed to reduce the supply of cocaine and heroin entering its borders, it has, however, succeeded in generating widespread, often profoundly damaging, consequences on democracy and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Colombia's Political Economy at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century

Colombia's Political Economy at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century PDF

Author: Bruce M. Bagley

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 0739192930

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This volume examines Colombia’s political economy at the outset of the twenty-first century. A group of leading experts explores various issues, such as drug trafficking, organized crime, economic performance, the internal armed conflict, and human rights. The experts highlight the various challenges that Colombia faces today. This volume is a major contribution to the field and provides a current panorama of the Colombia conflict.

Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America

Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America PDF

Author: W. Ascher

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-19

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1137272694

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Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America explores the links between Latin American governments' economic policies and the nature and dynamics of inter-group violence. Based on the patterns of ten countries, the contributions to this volume trace the remarkable transformation from open ideological conflict to the explosion of social (seemingly apolitical) violence, the upsurge of urban crime, and the confrontations over natural resources and drugs across the region spanning from Mexico to Argentina. The variations in economic success and in conflict prevention and transformation can guide policymakers, development professionals, and activists committed to conflict-sensitive development.