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12 - Organization and Governance: The Evolution of Urban Militias in Medellín, Colombia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2015

By
Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín
Edited by
Ana Arjona ,
Nelson Kasfir  and
Zachariah Mampilly
Ana Arjona
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Nelson Kasfir
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Zachariah Mampilly
Affiliation:
Vassar College, New York
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Summary

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relationship between the way in which the leftist militias organized and the governance structures they created and deployed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Medellín, Colombia. These militias displaced violent bands that had previously dominated the local population without establishing order. They succeeded due to superior organization, military discipline, and intelligence gained from disaffected civilians. The militias, motivated by leftist ideologies, gained popular support by restoring a modicum of order with harsh punishments of deviants and engaging in social campaigns of re-education among residents. But their success eventually resulted in the loss of their ideological coherence, discipline, and military capacity by recruiting former band members and local youth, and by seeking rents for personal benefit. These transformations eroded their popular support. Changes in militias’ internal organization, profile of fighters, and competition with other armed actors reveal some of the mechanisms through which organizational dynamics and models of governance affect each other.

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Chapter
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Rebel Governance in Civil War , pp. 246 - 264
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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