PINO URIBE, Juan Federico. An Unhappy Marriage? Democracy and Political Violence in Colombia: Between Restriction, Co-Option and Construction. []. , 22, 2, pp.369-393. ISSN 0122-4409.  https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.papo22-2.midv.

This article has two objectives. First, to structure a literature review of the research that has analyzed the “coexistence” between a relatively functional electoral democracy and a high intensity conflict in Colombia. Secondly, from this review, some of the conceptual assumptions, methodological strategies and results from these investigations are compared and discussed. From this review, it is identified that the academic production about the relationship between democracy and violence can be organized into three analytical tendencies. The first one studies the ways in which a restricted democracy motivates the emergence of political violence; on the contrary, the second one analyzes how political violence negatively affects democracy, the latest trend being focused on understanding this relationship as a long-term process linked to the construction processes of the Colombian State. In the last part of the article, the conceptual and methodological differences of the three tendencies are compared. Despite their differences, it is concluded that the three coincide in the way in which democracy has influenced the strategic behavior of the armed actors and how they have caused formal and informal transformations that have threatened or co-opted democratic institutions.

: political violence; democracy; subnational politics; armor actors; postconflict.

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