Introduction: Sources of Instability Political Trends Economic Trends

The current instability in Colombia derives from the interaction and resulting synergies of an underground criminal drug economy and the growth of armed challenges to the state’s authority. The first source of instability is reflected in the pervasive influence of drug networks and their infiltration of key societal institutions; the second lies in the growth of guerrilla armies, paramilitaries, and “privatized” security forces. The confluence of these factors has exacerbated even deeper problems in Colombian society, including the loss of central government authority, economic deterioration, and social disintegration, and may be creating the conditions for a “failed state.” A failed state is characterized by a severe political crisis in which the institutions of the central government are so weakened that they can no longer maintain authority or political order beyond the major cities and sometimes not even there.1