Palma, Oscar
(2013)
Transnational networks of insurgency and crime: explaining the spread of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia beyond national borders.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
Through official and academic circles a particular understanding of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) had spread: an almost devastated terrorist group whose interests
in profiting from drug trafficking clouded its political objectives. Its transnational networks
were either underestimated, perceiving they didn’t offer much to the organization; or
overestimated, believing that every Latin American agent on the Left of the political
spectrum was part of a conspiracy against the Colombian state.
The dissertation proposes a different narrative to explain the importance of transnational
networks and structures, especially how they may serve as a base for FARC to survive. The
Colombian insurgency is here addressed as a typical case of a kind of organization in which
political and criminal interests are blended. It further develops the concept of ‘commercial
insurgencies’, opposing a vision of the insurgency as a monolithic entity, to explain it as a
system of interconnected individuals with diverse functions and interests who constitute its
three dimensions: political, military and criminal.
It is here argued that commercial insurgencies exploit specific elements through the
environment to embed its nodes beyond the borders of a single state. These include
sympathy from individuals, support from national governments, connections with political
and social organizations, alliances with armed actors, the exploitation of empty spaces, and
the secretive placement of nodes. Common single-variable explanations to the embedment
of insurgents, such as support from a foreign allied government, are insufficient as an
objective account of this phenomenon. Furthermore, given certain environmental processes,
survival of insurgency elements may contribute to the reconstitution and re-emergence of
the organization.
In this sense the challenge of the counterinsurgent is two-fold: the insurgency is
multidimensional, and it tends to be transnational. Consequently, for an offensive to be
successful it needs to address all the dimensions simultaneously and to control the effects of
elements existing beyond borders.
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