Civil Society in Peace Negotiations. The Case of Colombia

Diploma dissertation "Civil Society in Peace Negotiations. The Case of Colombia" deals with the engagement of the Colombian civil society in the peace negotiations with the Movement 19 (M-19) that took place in 1989-1990, with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in 1998-2002 and with the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1999-2002. The examination of the selected peace processes revealed that the civil society had only limited impact on the negotiations. The involvement of the representatives of the civil society led to increase in number and extend of the objectives that were negotiated, decrease in the level of organization of the negotiations and while it did not reinforce the negotiating position of the main actors, it neither disposed with sufficient power to exert an effective pressure on the main actors of the conflict. The performance of the civil society was influenced by the external informal institutions - represented by traditional execution of power, clientelism, functioning of the political parties and continuing internal conflict - and by the internal informal institutions - namely by the characteristics of the colombian civil society and by the structure of incentives in the participative instances. The formal institutions - the Constitution and the laws - proved to have only..