Abstract

OTERO BAHAMON, Silvia. Where do Armed Actors Fight? Land Inequality and State Capacity in the Colombian Civil War. Desafíos [online]. 2022, vol.34, n.1, e04.  Epub May 10, 2022. ISSN 0124-4035.  https://doi.org/10.12804/revistas.urosario.edu.co/desafios/a.8818.

This article proposes a new concept of territorial dispute in civil wars to ask what makes a place more likely to be contested. It also investigates the territorial dispute causes of the Colombian armed conflict. I suggest that there is a correlation between land inequality and state capacity, and the process of inequality production and its resulting state capacity provide the motives, incentives, and opportunities for territorial dispute. I test my theory with a database composed of 200 Colombian municipalities over a five-year period. My results suggest that land inequality leads to greater state capacity, and intermediate state capacity correlates with territorial disputes. The findings confirm the existence of a nexus between land inequality and conflict in Colombia through state capacity. This has implications for the strategy of expanding state presence during the post-conflict period.

Keywords : Civil war; land inequality; state capacity; territorial control; Colombia.

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