Overview

Why do armed groups employ terrorism in markedly different ways during civil wars? Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, Andreas E. Feldmann examines the disparate behavior of actors including guerrilla groups, state security forces, and paramilitaries during Colombia's long and bloody civil war. Analyzing the varieties of violence in this conflict, he develops a new theory of the dynamics of terrorism in civil wars. Feldmann argues that armed groups' distinct uses-repertoires-of terrorism arise from their particular organizational identities, the central and enduring attributes that distinguish one faction from other warring parties. He investigates a range of groups that took part in the Colombian conflict over the course of its evolution from ideological to criminal warfare, demonstrating that organizational identity plays a critical role in producing and rationalizing violence. Armed parties employ their unique repertoires as a means of communication to assert their relevance and territorial presence and to differentiate themselves from enemies and rivals. Repertoires of Terrorism is based on an extensive data set covering thousands of incidents, as well as interviews, archival research, and testimony. It sheds new light on both armed groups' use of violence in Colombia's civil war and the factors that shape terrorist activity in other conflicts.

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Andreas Feldmann's pioneering analysis of how terrorism is employed in Colombia's long-lasting civil war focuses not only on the FARC's and ELN's deliberate attacks on civilians but also studies the blueprints of terrorism of the state's security forces and paramilitary groups seeking to preserve the status quo. The author does so masterfully, covering all the complex interactions of state and non-state actors. This book can serve as a model for a better understanding of other civil wars where political violence and organized crime have become enmeshed. Importantly, Feldmann's book also offers suggestions on how to diminish conditions of terrorist violence in internal conflicts. -- Alex P. Schmid, Distinguished Fellow, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), The Hague Andreas Feldmann masterfully brings back ideology and organizational identity to theories on the use of terrorist tactics in civil wars. This book stands out for its detailed, yet panoramic, comparison of all armed actors, including state security forces, and it will become a crucial reference on Colombia’s war, and on terrorist techniques. -- Angélica Durán-Martínez, University of Massachusetts, Lowell What explains the logic of terrorism in civil war? Feldmann shows that armed groups deploy terrorist tactics in line with organizational identities shaped by their history, ideology, leadership, and connections with organized crime. This is an impressive study of armed actors in the Colombian civil war, a tragedy that has displaced six million and killed half a million people. -- Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, University of Notre Dame

Author Information

Andreas E. Feldmann is an associate professor in the Departments of Political Science and Latin American and Latino Studies and the principal investigator of the Global Immigration Cluster Initiative at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is coauthor of Criminal Politics and Botched Development in Contemporary Latin America (2023).

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