ABSTRACT
Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) programmes aim to prevent the transformation of combatants into self-equipped soldiers or mercenary groups through the disbandment of armed groups that jeopardise the state’s monopoly of force and the management of ex-combatants that are the product of these demobilisations. However, this emphasis on the ex-combatants should be understood not wholly through the individuals’ behaviours, personality traits or skills, but through wider political and social conditions, i.e. in the interplay between the process of state-building and the process of negotiating citizenship. This research analyses the different demobilisation processes that occurred in Colombia in the twentieth century, but focuses on progress made in two different peace process that took place in the twenty-first century: the DDR of paramilitary and individual guerrilla members during Alvaro Uribe’s presidency (Uribe’s DDR), and the negotiation and the beginning of the implementation of the peace agreement between the FARC and President Santos (FARC-Santos DDR). In particular, this research explores the difficulties, challenges and security dilemmas combatants may face in integrating into a post-conflict society and switching to a citizen identity, in three areas: social, economic and political.
