2025/10/01 by Ali Ahmed, Marcus Johnson, Mateo Vásquez-Cortés · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Conflict, Peace, and Violence in Colombia #History and Politics in Latin America
paper · doi:10.1353/wp.2025.a971546
openalex publication_date 2025/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
abstract: Under what conditions do reforms prompt violent counterreform? Reform threatens elite interests in structurally unequal societies, prompting elites to use their power to counter reform. Although the existing literature demonstrates the material logic of counterreform, the authors build on critical race theory to argue that elites are more likely to target reforms meant for racially marginalized beneficiaries. The authors test this argument using original data on the largest communal land reform program undertaken in Latin America, the titling of collective lands belonging to Black communities in Colombia, through Law 70: the Law of Black Communities. The article shows that the legal recognition of Black collective property rights increased right-wing paramilitary attacks in municipalities in which Black communities requisitioned formal land titles. In addition, the authors demonstrate that titling reforms for peasant and Indigenous communities faced fewer attacks after legal recognition, relative to Black communities. These findings together offer new insights into the puzzling racialization of Colombian civil conflict since the 1990s.