Wednesday, 19 February 2025
2.30 - 4.00 pm
Free Admission
(You are requested to be seated by 2.15 pm)
Abstract
Over the course of a decades-long armed conflict, the Colombian state took a variety of approaches toward its insurgent opponent, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Successive governments swung between pursuing negotiations and responding with military counterinsurgency measures. FARC, for its part, proclaimed its commitment to “the combination of all forms of struggle”: seeking legitimation through both political and military means.
Investigating the relationship between FARC and the Colombian state from the outbreak of conflict in 1964 to the signing of the final peace agreement in 2016, Alexandra Rachel Phelan offers new insight into the dynamics of insurgencies. In such conflicts, both states and insurgents seek to assert their legitimacy, which has crucial implications for any prospective resolution. Phelan examines how FARC adopted different means of legitimation as part of its overall political and military strategy and how these strategies influenced government responses. She argues that the case of Colombia demonstrates that insurgents are more likely to engage in negotiations when the state recognizes their political legitimacy than when it demands their defeat. During a protracted conflict, when it is unclear that the state can win by military strength alone, offering incentives for political settlements can minimize—and perhaps even end—fighting. Drawing on interviews with former and active FARC leaders and Colombian government officials, as well as access to key primary documents, this book sheds new light on the Colombian conflict and provides rich theoretical understanding of the role of legitimacy in counterinsurgency more broadly.
About the Speaker
Alexandra Phelan is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash University. Her research interests include insurgent governance and legitimation activities, insurgent women and gender, political violence, illicit financing and organised crime with particular focus on Latin America. She has published on insurgent legitimation strategies, the Colombian conflict, and women in terrorism. She is the author of the book, The Combination of All Forms of Struggle: Insurgent Legitimation and State Response to FARC (Columbia University Press, 2025) and the editor of the book Terrorism, Gender and Women: Toward an Integrated Research Agenda (Routledge, 2021). She has published in multiple academic journals, including the Review of International Studies, the European Journal of International Security, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Critical Studies on Terrorism. She currently serves as an associate editor for the journal, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. She is also a Small Wars Journal- El Centro Fellow, and an Associate Fellow with RUSI's Terrorism and Conflict group.