The counter-insurgent paradox. How the FARC-EP successfully subverted counter-insurgent institutions in Colombia

摘要

Institutions are historical products shaped by power and contestation which don't necessarily respond to the purpose for which they were originally created. I will explore how 'communal action' institutions created to contain the advancement of the insurgent movement in rural Colombia in the 1950s were eventually used by guerrillas, notably the FARC-EP. Through them, rebels advanced their political agenda, reinforcing their organisational work in rural communities. The strategic impact of this contradictory process, cannot be over-stated, for it turned the struggle of rebels against the State into a struggle fought squarely within the very structures of the State they antagonised.