Abstract

CASAS-CASAS, Andrés  and  GUZMAN-GOMEZ, Juanita. The Eternal Yesterday? The Colombian Reintegration Process as Social Dilemma. Pap.polit. [online]. 2010, vol.15, n.1, pp.47-85. ISSN 0122-4409.

This work suggests answers to some key questions concerning the relationship between transition to peace, social dilemmas and democratic political culture. We emphasize the fact that for any human being, both demobilization and reintegration are steps that involve leaving behind the forms of action and interactions of war. In particular, these processes involve learning new ways of solving shared problems (mental models) through nonviolent mechanisms. We suggest that the reintegration phase is a marginal and incremental process that involves the abandonment of the preference for 'shortcut' behavior such as violence and illegality, given the incentives that increase the likelihood of benefits to solve social dilemmas in terms of the public good (peaceful and democratic coexistence). We develop our argument as follows: We establish the relationship between demobilization, political culture and democracy, explaining the logic of reintegration from an analytical perspective and research findings; then we interpret the mechanism as a social dilemma and develop an approach to reintegration that helps identify some of the tensions expressed in this process. Finally, we offer some thoughts and challenges that arise from this work.

Keywords : Mental Models; Demobilization; Reintegration; Reintegration Dilemma; Collective Action; Political Culture; Demobilization; Political Culture; Ethical problems; Community action; Colombia.

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