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Copyright by Jacob Goodman Dizard 2018 Copyright by Jacob Goodman Dizard 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Jacob Goodman Dizard Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: The Paradox of Militarization: Democratic Oversight and Military Autonomy in Mexico and Colombia Committee: Wendy Hunter, Supervisor Daniel Brinks Zoltan Barany Paula Newberg Peter Ward The Paradox of Militarization: Democratic Oversight and Military Autonomy in Mexico and Colombia by Jacob Goodman Dizard Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2018 To my mother, Debbie Friedman, and my stepfather, Nick Toia Who have always offered love, support, and refuge Even when I took it for granted. The Paradox of Militarization: Democratic Oversight and Military Autonomy in Mexico and Colombia Jacob Goodman Dizard, Ph.D.. The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Wendy Hunter Throughout Latin America, leaders facing persistent internal security threats have expanded military deployments. In such circumstances, civilian policymakers place an important political bet on military compliance and effectiveness in carrying out the mission—and are therefore loath to raise the military’s hackles by encroaching on sensitive institutional prerogatives. Contrary to the expectation of reinforced military autonomy, however, large-scale mission expansions in Mexico and Colombia showed that the disruptions induced by militarization can yield increased democratic oversight of the armed forces. In Colombia the change in democratic oversight was dramatic: between 2009 and 2017, over 1,000 soldiers were convicted of murder in civilian courts. Mexico’s oversight rise proved more tenuous, but the military lost its ability to protect soldiers accused of rights violations from prosecution in the civilian justice system. That the increases in oversight occurred most starkly in the realm of judicial accountability is puzzling, since prosecutions have been treated as the third rail of civil-military relations. To explain these changes, I start by noting that military autonomy thrives in the darkness, but militarization places a spotlight on military behavior. When rights abuses occur, civil society actors mobilize to create pressure for accountability at both the domestic and international levels, especially by calling v attention to militarizing states’ failure to comply with obligations under domestic laws, international treaties, and foreign assistance packages. Greater international pressure, in particular, weakens domestic leaders’ commitment to protecting the military from greater oversight. Despite this pressure, reform will be limited while executives remain dependent on the military to maintain order—as in Mexico. The existence of a policy alternative to militarization, however—such as Colombia’s peace process with the country’s main rebel group—may result in a fracturing of the executive-military alliance and pave the way for a substantial increase in democratic oversight. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables….……………………………………………………………………………….. .xi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………. xii CHAPTER 1: .................................................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Research Questions and Puzzle ......................................................................................................... 2 The Argument ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Substantive Relevance ........................................................................................................................ 6 Theoretical Relevance ......................................................................................................................... 8 Organization of the Dissertation ...................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2: ................................................................................................................................................ 13 THEORIZING MILITARIZATION’S EFFECTS ......................................................................................... 13 Research Question and Central Puzzle ........................................................................................... 13 Civil-Military Relations and Democratic Oversight ...................................................................... 14 Militarization Challenges Scholarly Expectations ......................................................................... 21 Civil Society Actors and Disruptive Contestation .......................................................................... 25 Coalitions and Independent Variables ............................................................................................ 28 Sequence of Events ............................................................................................................................ 34 Research Design ................................................................................................................................ 38 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................................. 43 COLOMBIA: MILITARIZATION, POWER, AND SCRUTINY .................................................................... 43 Introduction: Autonomy and Activity ............................................................................................. 43 Civil-Military Relations Take Shape: La Violencia, the Lleras Pact, and Security Deterioration ............................................................................................................................................................ 48 The 1950s: Partisan Violence and the Military in Power ............................................................... 48 The 1960s and 1970s: Insurgency, Doctrine, and Consolidated Autonomy ................................... 49 President Turbay and the Security Statute: Unleashing Military Power ........................................ 50 The 1980s: The Military as Powerful Spoiler ................................................................................. 52 The 1990s: Democracy, Security Crisis, and Rearmament ........................................................... 55 The 1991 Constitution and Military Autonomy: A Reckoning Postponed ...................................... 55 President Ernesto Samper: A Weak President and a Dejected Military ......................................... 56 vii President Andrés Pastrana: Negotiation and Militarization .......................................................... 58 Colombia’s Democratic Oversight Status: 2000 ............................................................................ 59 Militarization Ascendant: Plan Colombia and the Rise of Álvaro Uribe .................................... 61 Uribe’s First Term: Modernization and Personalized Civilian Control ........................................ 62 Colombia’s Democratic Oversight Status: 2006 ............................................................................ 67 Uribe’s Second Term: Battlefield Success, Political Polarization, and the Military under Scrutiny ........................................................................................................................................................ 70 The “False Positives” Scandal and the Assertion of Democratic Limits ....................................... 72 The Santos Administration: Civilian Recalibration and Military Resistance ............................. 75 New Civilian Priorities, New Military Suspicions .......................................................................... 75 Colombia’s Democratic Oversight Status: 2012 ............................................................................ 78 Peace Talks and the Difficulty of Reassuring the Military ............................................................. 80 The 2014 Election: Collusion and the Articulation of Military Grievances ................................... 81 The Electoral Aftermath: Military Resistance and Fragile Peace .................................................. 83 Peace Accords, Social Order Coalition Resistance, and Civil-Military Disequilibrium ................ 84 Colombia’s Democratic Oversight Status: 2017 ............................................................................ 85 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 88 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................................................. 91 MURDER, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND BACKLASH IN COLOMBIA ............................................................ 91 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 91 Historical Overview: ........................................................................................................................
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