ABSTRACT
The continuous process of creating and demobilising armed groups has played a pivotal part in the building of the Colombian state and in the negotiation of citizenship rights for both the ex-combatants and wider sectors of the population. This research has reached five main conclusions: first, that the individual benefits for the rank-and-file troops seem to have less impact on relapse into conflict than the improvement of the general social and economic conditions in rural areas. Second, that the reintegration benefits for the ex-combatants are linked to the rationale behind the negotiations: in the power of the commanders to decide who is included or excluded from demobilised status and the salience of the judicial benefits over the economic ones. Third, that DDR programmes play a major role in the fostering of new social and political interactions between the ex-combatants, the communities and the state. Fourth, that the economic outlook of ex-combatants tends to be of unemployed or work in low-income and informal jobs, yet this does not necessarily lead them to recidivism. Finally, the political parties that are the product of the demobilisation of armed groups tend to be doomed to fail; therefore, DDR programmes should address political reintegration through strategies for citizenship-building.
