The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia (Cornell Series on Land: New Perspectives on Territory Development and Environment)

In The Frontier Effect Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá Colombia the cause of the regions violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder.Through his insightful exploration of war paramilitary organizations grassroots support and resistance and drug-related violence Ballvé argues that Urabá rather than existing in statelessness has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups drug-trafficking paramilitaries military strategists technocratic planners local politicians and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of the state in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix Ballvé reveals how Colombias violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient if not at all benevolent regimes of rule.