Borderland Battles

Borderlands are like a magnifying glass on some of the world’s most entrenched security challenges. In unstable regions, border areas attract violent non-state groups, ranging from rebels and paramilitaries to criminal organizations, who exploit central government neglect. These groups compete for territorial control, cooperate in illicit cross-border activities, and provide a substitute for the governance functions usually associated with the state. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with more than six hundred interviews in and on the shared borderlands of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela—where conflict is rife and crime thriving—this book provides exclusive firsthand insights into these war-torn spaces. It reveals how dynamic interactions among violent non-state groups produce a complex security landscape with ramifications for order and governance both locally and beyond. These interactions create not only physical violence but also less visible forms of insecurity. When groups fight each other, community members are exposed to violence but can follow the rules imposed by the opposing actors. Unstable short-term arrangements among violent non-state groups fuel mistrust and uncertainty among communities, eroding their social fabric. Where violent non-state groups engage in relatively stable long-term arrangements, “shadow citizenship” arises: a mutually reinforcing relationship between violent non-state groups that provide public goods and services, and communities that consent to their illicit authority. Contrary to state-centric views that consider borderlands uniformly violent spaces, the transnational borderland lens adopted in the book demonstrates how the geography and political economy of these borderlands intensify these multifaceted security impacts.