The Impact of Domestic Politics on Foreign Policy: The Colombian Case Study

Introduction

Colombia is amongst the world’s highly polarised states and has endured conflict for decades. The country witnessed around 50 years of armed struggle between militant groups, the government, and the drug cartels and has seen various forms of human rights violations in these years. The country saw more than 220,000 people killed in the conflict, roughly 25000 kidnapped or disappeared and more than 5 million displaced citizens (García-Perdomo, Harlow & Brown, 2022). However, after much pressure from the people and the government, the guerrilla factions and the ruling party convened to sign a peace agreement that essentially brought the active warring factions to a pause. On November 24, 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army, or FARC, signed a landmark peace agreement, which also saw the militants present a public apology to the people of Colombia for their violent actions (Georgi, 2022).

Since the end of the Second World War, Colombia has seen various governments adopt different stances and approaches to their foreign policies. Multiple domestic actors – state and non-state- have strongly influenced the country’s diplomacy. For example, between 1998 – 2002, Colombia moved from the narrative of remaining a failed state and developed ties with the US (Monroy & Sanchez, 2017). The Republic of Colombia has had 17 presidents since 1946, most of whom belong to Right-Wing conservative parties. The current President, Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego, is the first President from a liberal and leftist political party (Tickner, 2022, 8:10) in decades. The country has never had a progressive-left leader in its political history, and his government has been making waves on all fronts concerning ties with neighbouring countries, attempting to resolve the internal conflict, and dealing with economic disparities within the population.

A state’s foreign policy primarily focuses on interactions with other states and international actors and is essential to its political agenda. Given the interdependence of these two domains, domestic politics play a vital role in determining a state’s foreign policy. Foreign policy refers to a state’s approach and actions internationally. In contrast, domestic politics refers to the political processes, institutions, and actors within a state that affect the country’s policies. This essay uses Colombia as a case study to investigate how the country’s domestic politics and conflicts have affected its foreign policy. The timeline under revision is from the end of the Second World War to the present.

This paper will look at the following factors as critical points of discussion. Determining the success of a policy is done by evaluating its efficiency and the evident improvement of situations. The paper will examine 1. How has the evolution of state leadership impacted Colombia’s foreign policy? 2. What role did the insurgents and drug lords play in this scenario? The state leadership (Hey, 1997), the insurgents, and the drug lords are critical players in Colombia’s political landscape and the evolution of its foreign policy. King, Keohane and Verba (1994, p.76) define causality as “a theoretical concept independent of the data used to learn about it”. It is difficult to draw causal inferences in a limited paper. Still, by examining the players mentioned earlier, this paper hopes to attract inferences between domestic politics and the direction of the country’s foreign policy.

State Leadership and Foreign Policy

There is a crisp scent of dependency theory when exploring literature about the foreign policies of Latin American countries (Hey, 1997). Similarly, Colombia – a state that witnessed long years of violent conflicts, deaths, kidnappings and illegal drug production continued on the same path as the rest of the countries in the continent. Significant economic disparities and multiple right-wing presidencies saw the inequality between people grow larger and larger (Hey, 1997). These were all critical factors in shaping how the country’s foreign policy presented itself to the world. After the end of the Second World War, Colombia maintained a low profile with respect to its foreign policy (Drekonja-Kornat, 1983). However, Colombia did have a traditional foreign policy – as in a Ministry to oversee relations and maintain ties with neighbouring countries, especially since border disagreements were high. Colombia had closer ties with the US than its immediate neighbouring states. At the same time, there appeared to be a consensus on the state leadership directing policies to suit principles of capitalistic democracy, free trade and markets; Colombia’s external affairs seemed to feed off of international support, especially from the United States of America. The US, in its quest to spread its capitalist democracy, assisted the various presidencies with aid and other means to combat guerrilla movements and insurgent activities. In turn, Colombia helped the US in the Korean War and stood by the US during the Cold War years, too. Drekonja-Kornat (1983) says Colombia was the only Latin American Country involved in the Korean conflict. During Turbay’s presidency, the US-Colombia ties grew closer, and US assistance helped establish his regime further (Hey, 1997). He held office from 1978 – 1982.

The state’s leadership, in return, adopted and often tailored policies to suit strategic and international partners, particularly the US. Examples of presidencies adopting such policies include supporting the US stance on drugs (Hey, 1997), committing to recognise threats and terrorist activities as adjudged by the US and the EU, etc. (United States Department of State, 2021). Colombia’s constant internal security dilemma accentuates the existence of a dependency theory of Foreign Policy.

Impact of the Internal Conflict on Colombia’s Foreign Policy

The insurgents, guerrilla groups, and drug cartels played a role in shaping the foreign policy of Colombia. The entry of drugs into neighbouring countries, particularly the US, brought an international player into Colombia’s domestic issues (Gomez-Suarez & Newman, 2013). The United States desperately tried to solve the drug menace, which led to fighting the drug cartels and networks. America aided and supported the governments in curbing the cartel’s activities and eliminating insurgents who pushed for a more communist ideology, primarily in the Cold War period. Colombia’s alignment with the US on account of the Cold War influenced its domestic politics, which had a more significant say in shaping the country’s foreign policy. The United States of America is Colombia’s largest aid donor; listed below are some of the aid packages received by Colombia:

1. The US has provided more than $1 billion in direct and indirect support for implementing peace in Colombia since 2016. (United States Department of State, 2021).
2. The US provided roughly $700 million to assist Colombia with the Venezuelan migrant crisis and host approximately 1.8 million refugees in Colombia. (United States Department of State, 2021).

Viewing the case from a realist perspective, much of Colombia’s foreign affairs has been dictated by the ebbs and flow of the insurgency. With Colombia’s development and domestic affairs requiring external support, it lacked the necessary flexibility to implement social development schemes as dependency on external aid was high (Monroy & Sanchez, 2017). Colombia became an instrument of the American War on Drugs, almost a pawn to the American foreign policy in Latin America (Tickner, 2011).

While examining the history of how the state’s leadership handled its foreign policy directives and its domestic issues, there is space for some leniency. Many attempts to broker a peace agreement between the insurgents and the state were met with strong reluctance from the general public and a lack of participation from insurgent groups. Furthermore, corruption in various levels of government offices withheld any progress that could have been made. One could interpret the constant repetition of right-wing presidencies as people’s reluctance to move away from conservative rules, much to the dismay of insurgents, ultimately rendered the public most affected in the struggle for domestic power in the country.

The Way Forward

Gustavo Petro became the first leftist President of Colombia on June 19, 2022, in decades (Freeman, 2023). His Presidential victory also marked the first-ever Afro-Colombian, Francia Marquez, to take office as Vice President. Unlike his liberal predecessors, the change in power was smooth from his rightist counterparts. As a leftist, there were questions about his merit and reputation as the country’s leftists were primarily likened to insurgents and militants. While the 2016 Peace Accords dismantled and disarmed most militants from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC, the associations took longer to change.

President Petro, however, is having quite the start to office. He is leading a policy of ‘Total Peace’, an effort to include all factions and players in the internal conflict and arrive at an end to the insurgency; his presidency plans to shift Colombia’s economic dependency on trade from the US, fossil fuels and the illicit drug trade to a more sustainable approach (Freeman, 2023), that would be similar to the Green Theory. One can interpret his actions as playing on both sides of the solid and historical US-Colombia ties (Santa Eulalia, 2022). Owing to the associations with his left-leaning tendencies, his moves are somewhat open to more scrutiny by the public. After all, no incumbent President has been re-elected to office in the last 15 elections (Freeman, 2023).

A significant part behind his election to office has been the general public’s displeasure at rising economic inequalities between people, the inability of the previous government to provide and implement social welfare schemes and the financial toll caused by inactivity during the Covid-19 pandemic. While Drekonja-Konrat (1986) argues that most Latin-American countries can shape their foreign policies to the extent that it doesn’t hurt US interests, Petro is challenging the very notion of keeping his voters happy (Santa Eulalia, 2022). The truth in the details is that they are pretty co-dependent; Colombia needs the support of the US in tackling drug issues and the matter of the guerrilla militant groups, while the US views Colombia as a key strategic partner in the region. Accordingly, Petro has to carefully cater to his vote-bank’s anti-Americanism and yet maintain cordial ties with the US. It is a fragile line to tread, but the room to navigate and keep the US and the public happy is also quite small. Political revisionism is prevalent, given Petro is trying to appease both sides of support, constantly showing evident links as to how a country’s domestic politics can affect its foreign policy.

References

Drekonja-Kornat., G. (1983). Colombia: Learning the Foreign Policy Process, Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 25(2). Pp- 229-250.

Drekonja-Kornat., G. (1986). The rise of Latin America’s foreign policy: Between hegemony and autonomy. Latin American Research Review, 21(1), 239-259.

Freeman, W. (February 2023). Colombia tries a transformative Left Turn, Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from: https://www.cfr.org/article/colombia-tries-transformative-left-turn

García-Perdomo, V.,  Harlow, S. & Brown, D. K., (2022). Framing the Colombian Peace Process: Between Peace and War Journalism, Journalism Practice.

Georgie, R. (2022). Peace that antagonises: Reading Colombia’s peace process as a hegemonic crisis, Security Dialogue, pp – 1-19.

Gomez-Suarez, A. & Newman, J., (2013). Safeguarding Political Guarantees in the Colombian Peace Process: have Santos and FARC learnt the lessons from the past?, Third World Quarterly, 34(5), pp – 819-837.

Hey, J. A. K. (1997). Three Building Blocks of a Theory of Latin American Foreign Policy, Third World Quarterly, 18(4), pp -631-658.

King, G., Keohane, R.O, & Verba, S. (1994). Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research.Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.

Monroy, M. C. & Sánchez, F. (2017) Foreign Policy Analysis and the Making of Plan Colombia, Global Society, 31(2), pp – 245-271.

Santaeulilah, I. (October 2022). Petro Playing Both Sides in Colombia-US Relations, El Pais. Retrieved from: https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-10-26/petro-playing-both-sides-in-colombia-us-relations.html

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