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  • Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil Military Relations in Colombia
  • Jennifer Holmes
Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil Military Relations in Colombia. By William Avilés. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. x, 192. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $60.00 cloth.

In this book, Avilés applies the theory of global capitalism to a broad study of democracy and the changing patterns of civil military relations in Colombia. Specifically, [End Page 458] Avilés conceptualizes the state as transnational, which is both national and supranational. According to Avilés, a transnational state "operates in order to advance the interests of an emergent global bourgeoisie (transnational corporations), with nation states becoming 'components' of a larger economic and political project" (p. 2). This historical and conceptual analysis focuses on the transnational corporations, international economic organizations, and "technopols" within each country. Avilés views the Colombian state as thin, procedural, and heavily influenced by the United States and its neoliberal economic policies. He characterizes Colombia as a "low-intensity democracy" (p. 19) that aims to provide secure investment for transnational capital, legitimize capitalism, co-opt the opposition, and emphasize control.

Avilés documents the educational and professional links between Colombian elites and transnational influences. He also attempts to examine how IMET aid affects civil military relations. For example, he links the continued support of the Samper administration from economic groups to favoritism in the privatization process. He also links limited sanctions against Colombia during decertification to the lobbying of transnational corporations. According to Avilés, the neoliberal economic reforms worsened Colombia's social and economic crisis and aggravated the human rights crisis and impunity.

Avilés examines the contradiction between the expansion of civilian formal authority and the actual exercise of state power in his analysis of paramilitary violence. Specifically, he examines counterinsurgency policy and paramilitaries through the Barco and Samper administrations. He concludes "paramilitarism performed a level of repression that given the international context of 'democracy promotion' state security forces could no longer play" (p. 122). The analysis is expanded into the Pastrana and Uribe administrations, with a focus on civil military relations, low intensity democracy, and the international context, with a special emphasis on the transnational and the agrarian elite in the government of Uribe. Avilés views the on-going Colombian internal conflict as a result of the "continued resistance, legal and illegal, to the economic agenda associated with this integration" (p. 142), conflict which is responded to with state and parastate violence. The continued efforts of the old agrarian elite to pursue their counterinsurgency policy through support of paramilitarism undermine whatever success is achieved through increasing the formal powers of civilians over the military.

In conclusion, this book diverges from traditional works of civil-military relations by examining the interaction between the international context, via transnational elites, corporations, U.S. foreign policy, and domestic forces. Avilés concludes that there is a new "form of elite rule concomitant with the requirements of capitalist globalization, in which the internal role of the armed forces remains prominent, economic inequality and deprivation remain as continuing challenges, and the democratic behavior of states are conditioned by transnational interests" (p. 147).

Jennifer Holmes
University of Texas, Dallas
Richardson, Texas
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