ABSTRACT
The Colombian puzzle – relatively robust democratic institutions with a high level of (political/criminal) violence – draws on an apparent core/periphery divide: violence is most often concentrated in the latter, while the former may even enjoy boom cycles at the very same time. Behind this apparent core/periphery divide lie subnational institutions that have very little in common with the democratic promises of the country's constitution. These institutions, elsewhere identified as subnational oligarchic citizenship defects (2022), cannot be solely reduced to the effects of armed actors nor nefarious political actors. Rather, these two factors – non-state armed actors and nefarious political as well as economic elites – work in tandem in a functional alliance. In order to make the case for Colombia's peculiarity in the theatre of different oligarchies, the chapter explores the rise and fall of the paramilitary phenomenon in the Caribbean region from the mid-1990s, through their demobilization in the 2000s, until their restructuring in the course of the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It highlights the importance of political clans, the contractual relations between political clans and paramilitaries, and the exercise of coercion on the one hand and the control of significant material wealth on the other hand.
