Colombian Lessons?

This collaborative research project directed by Prof Markus-Michael Müller (Roskilde University) and GSP's Prof Markus Hochmüller (Freie Universität Berlin/University of Oxford) offers the first systematic analysis of the practical and normative consequences of South-South Security Cooperation in Latin America. It explores the transfer of “lessons learned” by Latin America’s most important security-exporting country, Colombia. By focusing on the role of local agency in two recipient countries, the project assesses the effectiveness, empirical legitimacy, and local impact of these new modes of South-South Cooperation (SSC) within the field of Latin American security governance. Given the violent nature of the region’s democratic orders, the project explores the consequences of security-driven SSC for the rule of law and the democratic quality of security provision in recipient countries. Based on multi-sited fieldwork (interviews and participant observation) and the analysis of key security documents, the project examines how Colombian police and military training as a horizontal mode of cooperation changes doctrinal and operational features of security governance in recipient countries, how local security actors translate, appropriate, modify, or contest the Colombian expertise, and to what normative effect.

Project's website: https://conpeace.pmb.ox.ac.uk/our-projects

Colombian National Police (coat of arms)

Author: Policia Colombia

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Funding

We acknowledge the financial support of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.