Los estudios sobre la relación entre música y fuerzas militares suelen estar mediados por enfoques tradicionales que analizan la música marcial o sus usos para los fines de la institución. Sin embargo, existe una producción musical de integrantes activos y retirados de las fuerzas militares que no es marcial, que no necesariamente está institucionalizada y que se aleja de los usos y temáticas que usualmente se asocian a la música militar. El estudio de estas producciones complejiza y enriquece los enfoques tradicionales sobre la relación entre música y fuerzas militares. Este texto presenta los hallazgos de la recopilación y análisis de 463 canciones compuestas y/o interpretadas por militares activos y retirados en Colombia entre 1989 y 2021, junto con entrevistas a algunos de estos artistas. Los hallazgos sugieren que abordar este tipo de música, que pocas veces es reconocida como ‘militar’, permite conocer la perspectiva del soldado como individuo en contextos de guerra y posconflicto; facilita la comprensión de la relación entre música institucional y no institucional y los distintos usos que se le da; y abre líneas de investigación sobre la forma en la que estas producciones entran en diálogo con géneros musicales, identidades regionales y el mercado artístico en el que participan.

How do state interventions targeting illicit economies influence armed violence? Using Colombia as a critical case, we argue that aerial spraying of coca crops exacerbates violence by destabilizing local power dynamics and disrupting interactions among armed actors, civilians, and the state. Using municipal-level data from 2000 to 2015, we find that aerial spraying increases overall levels of violence in affected areas. Aerial spraying, we find, propitiates retaliatory violence against the state, stimulates turf wars between armed organizations, and produces civilian victimization. Moreover, we show that paramilitaries and criminal organizations respond more sharply to aerial spraying, escalating retaliation against the state and violence against civilians. By contrast, insurgent violence remains more consistent, driven by ideological goals and largely independent of eradication efforts. These findings reveal how fleeting large-scale interventions can inadvertently fuel conflict by altering the strategic equilibria of violent actors in illicit economies.

Compulsory voting (CV) has been common in Latin America. While research on its effects is burgeoning, little is known about its origins. This article seeks to start filling the gap by focusing on the adoption of CV in democratising polities. It proposes an explanation that rests on two implications of what this institution can reasonably be expected to do, i.e. increase turnout. The first logic suggests that CV was established to curb electoral malfeasance. The second, in turn, posits that it was introduced for damage limitation to those who held power. These hypotheses are tested against alternatives through a comparative historical study of three South American countries.

Approximately three million Venezuelan migrants (VMs) currently reside in Colombia. Many are in need of mental health services but face significant difficulties accessing services. To improve service access and engagement, we culturally adapted and pilot tested an evidence-based mental health intervention integrated within entrepreneurship training in a community setting for VM youth in Colombia. Using participatory research and qualitative methods approaches, we explored the program’s acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility. We recruited and enrolled 67 VM youth (aged 18–30) living in Bogotá, Colombia, who participated in piloting the intervention. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a subset of these participants (n = 16) at post-intervention to explore the intervention’s acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility. Two bilingual research assistants analyzed qualitative data using thematic network analysis. Findings suggested that VM youth viewed the integrated intervention as acceptable and appropriate, noting that it was helpful to have a “safe space” to discuss difficult emotions. They also noted challenges to engaging in the intervention, including transportation time and balancing other life responsibilities with intervention participation. Findings point to the importance of engaging community member participants in the adaptation and testing process of mental health interventions to increase intervention fit with the target population.

In its Macro Case 01, the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP) studied massive detentions committed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) to determine if they should be remanded to amnesty proceedings or tried as international crimes. This included the question of detention of civilians and persons hors de combat for an eventual “humanitarian exchange” with imprisoned guerrilla fighters. The JEP concluded that this was in fact the crime of hostage-taking, because the sole reason for the detention was to force a “prisoner exchange”, and conditions of detention were so harrowing that persistent detention amounted to a threat to the life and physical security of the hostages. While the JEP did not refer to conditions of lawful detention, the ruling does suggest circumstances of lawful detention by non-State armed groups and limits to their authority to detain.

Andean Condor Vultur gryphus populations are particularly low in the northern Andes. The species is considered nearly eradicated from Venezuela and listed as “Endangered” in Ecuador and “Critically Endangered” in Colombia. Even though it is severely endangered, the size of the Colombian condor population remains unknown. Using a citizen science-based approach, we conducted the first Andean Condor count for Colombia with the help of 207 observers at 84 simultaneous observation points. We used N-mixture models for spatially replicated counts to estimate the condor population. The total number of condors recorded simultaneously was 63 individuals, and we estimated a population size of 175–269 individuals using a maximum likelihood approach and 165–222 and 172–229 for the two best models using the Bayesian approach. Adults were observed more frequently than juveniles (1:0.43), a common pattern among raptors related to the higher mortality rates of immature birds, which is a prominent conservation concern due to the status of the species and the threats it currently faces throughout the northern Andes. Our citizen science-based study made it possible to gather, for the first time in Colombia, consolidated information on the status of the Andean Condor population using a standardised methodology to provide a reference for future counts and conservation actions, both at the national level and throughout the geographical range of the species.

This article analyzes the main investigative and legal challenges addressed by the Acknowledgment Chamber of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) in Case 07 on recruitment and use of children in the armed conflict. First, it presents a general background on the mandate of the SJP as a special system of justice – the outcome of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement reached between the Colombian government and the former FARC-EP guerrilla group. Second, it outlines how the investigative methodology used in Case 07 addressed challenges related to understanding child recruitment as a complex criminal phenomenon, the identification of those bearing the greatest responsibility, and the approach to the broad scale and scope of the victimization. Finally, the article addresses the main challenges faced by the Chamber in the legal qualification of the criminal patterns identified, and how it resolved three key issues: the determination of the age threshold under which child recruitment constitutes a war crime, the definitions of the international humanitarian law status of protections of individuals within an armed group, and the classification of different forms of gender-based violence as war crimes.

This article analyses Colombian South–South security cooperation. Drawing upon empirical research findings and by focusing on Colombian security engagements with other Latin American countries in the realm of military transformation, we identify the role of epistemological constructs as key drivers of Colombian South–South security cooperation. We demonstrate that Colombian policy and security actors intentionally created comparability between their own country and its security challenges, and the conditions existing in other countries of the region. This portrayal of idiosyncratic (in)security features as shared attributes across otherwise-different country contexts enables the transfer of security models rooted in Colombia’s expertise and experience. We show how such security-driven homologisation efforts enabled Colombian security practitioners to navigate international hierarchies, particularly unequal US–Colombian relations in their favour, allowing them to secure continued US support and position Colombian security expertise as a blueprint for addressing contemporary security challenges across the region and beyond.

Businesses have traditionally been seen as reluctant participants in equality policy initiatives. However, emerging governance guidelines increasingly advocate for gender mainstreaming, encouraging active business engagement. Our research examines this potential transformation, focusing on the role of businesses adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices compared to traditional equality policy actors – governments, equality organizations, and academia – within the Colombian context. Using a collaborative governance framework and participatory decision-making techniques, we identify potential role shifts toward proactivity and specific contributions from each actor group. Our findings highlight discordant mutual expectations, or “role mismatch”, and divergent perceptions within the business sector, which may undermine traditional actors. These insights emphasize the risks inherent in business participation in equality policy. By delineating contributions and clarifying self-perceptions and mutual expectations, we offer a practical approach to designing participatory processes that foster mutual recognition, trust, and shared responsibility as foundations for advancing equality policies.

In Colombia, there has been very little discussion about the epidemiological transition in the 20th century, therefore, there are few empirical studies, and this mainly focus on the second half of the 20th century, and on the factors associated with improvements in mortality indicators. In this paper, we define three stages of the epidemiological transition in the country during the period 1918–1998, with special emphasis on changes in mortality rates, causes of death and the contribution of different age groups. Likewise, a co-integration analysis is carried out to model the long-term relationship between the mortality rate and the variables of nutrition, public health, education and economic growth. Finally, we show the results of the structural change tests of the mortality rates for pneumonia and tuberculosis to examine the impact of the arrival of sulphonamides and penicillin in Colombia.

This paper examines the effects of state capacity on the reported Covid-19 infection (and mortality) rate and its policy implications. We analyse two dimensions of state capacity which were critical during the pandemic. The healthcare capacity acted to contain the virus outbreak (an effect we call containment). The information capacity acted to detect contagious yet asymptomatic cases (an effect we call detection). We argue that containment pushes down the reported infection rate. In contrast, detection pushes it up, thus generating a non-linear combined effect that we estimate systematically using Colombian municipality-level as well as country-level data, different data sources, and various empirical strategies. Our findings indicate that the infection (and mortality) rates were likely under-reported, especially in areas with a low state capacity level, due to their poor capabilities to detect the virus. Our study put the emphasis on the many facets of state capacity, each affecting in complex ways our understanding of important phenomena, such as the Covid-19 outbreak.

Esta investigación plantea que el espacio urbano contribuye a la caracterización de movimientos sociales urbanos. Para ello, hace un análisis espacial cartográfico del Paro Nacional de 2021 en Bogotá y Cali (Colombia), el cual se realizó a partir de un mapeo de los lugares y tipos de protesta mediante revisión de prensa y redes sociales. Se encontraron patrones que permiten evidenciar estrategias de ocupación espacial de la protesta, así como una dispersión que caracteriza la agencia ciudadana. También se evidenció cómo la pobreza determina la selección de lugares por proximidad y visibilidad, mas no intersección, y que los sistemas de transporte guían la dispersión en función de su significado como materialidad del Estado. Finalmente, se identificó cómo tensiones sobre los bordes territoriales consolidan desplazamiento de las acciones del interior de los barrios o a los límites, lo que apoya procesos de territorialización que identifican a los movimientos sociales urbanos emergentes.