The existing literature on PMSC agrees on the fact that the demilitarization process that took place after the end of the Cold War was one of the main causes for the consolidation of a corporatized industry of private military and security providers around the world. The excess of trained personnel and the emergence of new wars increased the supply and demand for PMSC, a perfect combination for a profitable business. However, the presence of these private companies in Colombia responded to a different set of dynamics characterized by the following three elements. First, the country did not face a demilitarization process that could have otherwise increased the amount of unemployed military-trained workforce. The internal security challenges present in Colombia obliged the government to strengthen its security and defense policies in order to counter insurgent groups and drug trafficking.
65 Second, instead of following a demilitarization path, the country went through a militarization process that intensified after 2002. In 1998, the government and the FARC initiated a new round of peace negotiations that came to an end on February of 2002 due to violations of the initial agreements by the insurgent group. The failed negotiations left the armed confrontation as the only way out of the conflict which encouraged the government to strengthen the country’s military and police forces. Finally, not only foreign but also domestic PMSC settled successfully in Colombia in the absence of a demilitarization process. In the 1990s these private companies began to play a significant role in the provision of military and security services, and their active presence in the country continues taking place today.
The evolution of the internal situation in Colombia contrasts with the widespread academic “proposition that large militaries undermine democracy, equity, and economic growth” (Bowman, 2002, p. 4) in Latin America. However, the increasing level of militarization and the expansion of the private security industry in the last decades in Colombia are undeniable, as are the country’s relatively positive democracy ratings, political stability, and economic growth. Therefore, under the framework of the current literature on militarization and PMSC, the country’s internal context, characterized by the rise of a private security industry within a militarization process and the apparent positive effect of militarization on democracy and economic growth, results intellectually puzzling. It is precisely this puzzling situation the one that motivates the formulation of the research questions that the present research aims to answer:
66 Research Question No. 1: Despite the fact that PMSC emerged in the context of demilitarization after the end of the Cold War, why has the domestic private security industry developed in an environment marked by greater militarization in Colombia during the last two decades?
Research Question No. 2: While existing literature on militarization concludes that large militaries and high defense budgets are negatively associated with development (in terms of levels of democracy and economic growth) in Latin America, why does the militarization process in Colombia seem to have had a positive effect on democracy and economic growth?
The demilitarization trend after the Cold War was not as palpable in Colombia as it might have been perceived in other countries of the world. On the contrary, the demand for more and better security services increased and the national government was obliged to strengthen the country’s military and security institutions. This reinforced the militarization process in Colombia instead of reducing the levels of military spending and trained workforce. However, the dynamics of the internal armed conflict and the period of violence that took place in the country after 1990 made all governmental efforts insufficient: the national armed forces were not able to satisfy the entire demand for security. The gap between supply and demand for security became then an attractive opportunity for the formalization of the private sector that began to offer security services that were rapidly and widely accepted by the society. This situation
67 provides enough elements to suggest two hypotheses regarding the first research question of the dissertation:
Hypothesis No. 1: The rise of the domestic private security industry in Colombia is not triggered by the country’s militarization or demilitarization context; other factors motivate its growth.
Hypothesis No. 2: The domestic private security industry and the national armed forces provide complementary services to fulfill the increasing demand for security in a country affected by a protracted internal armed conflict.
Consequently, while the demand for security in Colombia is not satisfied by the national armed forces, the private security industry has the possibility to develop and expand. Hence, a larger supply of security services becomes accessible to individuals and private organizations, improving in this way the country’s security environment as well. This constant availability of an alternative provider of security services may take away some of the state’s burden to create stable scenarios that encourage development, and enable the proposition of two additional hypotheses in relation to the second research question of the dissertation:
Hypothesis No. 3: The presence of a domestic private security industry mitigates the negative effects of militarization on democracy and economic growth.
68 Hypothesis No. 4: The domestic private security industry fulfills security demands that promote a stable political and economic environment.