The Colombian peace process: Top-down peace agreement and bottom-up territorial peacebuilding

After 52 years of armed conflict in Colombia and several attempts to reach a negotiated settlement, a peace agreement was reached between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Yet, when put to a popular referendum, the agreement was narrowly rejected by the Colombian electorate. While there are multiple explanations for the rejection, it was the elite-negotiated transitional justice provisions that proved to be a deal breaker for many. This is particularly true for the urban population which is largely removed from the intensity of guerrilla violence. In fact, a closer look at the referendum results reveals a sharp division between areas strongly affected by the armed conflict and areas less so. The more intense the conflict, the more likely people were to support the peace agreement.    

In this seminar, Caroline Delgado will look at this division and its implications for the Colombian peace process. Drawing from research conducted in conflict-intense rural areas in Colombia, the peace agreement will be discussed alongside the government’s commitment to a bottom-up territorial peacebuilding approach that goes beyond the rejected (and just recently renegotiated) agreement with the FARC.

Caroline Delgado is a PhD Candidate at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester. Her research focus is on Colombian security dynamics, specifically the different ways that security and insecurity are understood and practiced at the state level and at the level of conflict-affected communities.