Protesting After War : Investigating the long-term effect of insurgent violence on protest dynamics in Colombia

Sammanfattning: In order to break the cycle of violence in war-ridden societies, nonviolent mechanisms to deal with conflicts has to be established. One such mechanism is protests, which when performed peacefully can be a powerful tool for political change. Protests can however also be a cause for violence and this thesis sets out to explore why protests turns more violent in some post-war subnational areas compared to others. I suggest that protest violence in part can be explained by the preceding intensity of insurgent violence, as the government puts more efforts into combating insurgent groups and less towards responding to local needs where this violence is perpetuated. Where this occurs, institutional relationships deteriorate, which result in negotiations becoming less likely while violence is viewed as more justified and useful before and during protests. Using the structured focused comparison method, I test this theoretical argument by comparing Cali and Barranquilla, two Colombian cities where left-wing ideologies prevail but where protest violence has differed substantially. The evidence, which has been collected through a document analysis and in-depth interviews conducted during two-months of field work in Colombia, provide modest support for the hypothesis that protest violence was more likely where insurgent violence had been prevalent during the war.