El Salvador: The Limits of a Violent Peace

Abstract

There has been a growing emphasis in conflict scholarship on critically assessing the long-term impacts of political conflict, the limitations of peace-building initiatives and the role of domestic and international actors in building civil society following sustained conflict (Debiel, 2002; Pearce, 1998; Richmond, 2006). In particular, empirical evidence from post-conflict situations increasingly demonstrates that the political economies of war spill onto and constrict the development of peace (Pugh, 2006). Matters of political economy in post-conflict contexts create particular points of ‘vulnerability’ and one area in which these vulnerabilities are most brutally manifest is in continuing and even rising rates of violence and crime after the cessation of hostilities (AVPI, 2004). This has led to broader interrogation on the relationship between transition and violence (Kooning and Kruijt, 1999; Pereira and Davis, 2000; Rotker, 2002). The nature of this relationship has sparked debates on the ‘newness’ of the violence to emerge in fledgling democratic and post-war contexts, particularly in Latin America where levels of interpersonal violence are among the highest in the world (Kooning and Kruijt, 2004). Violence in Latin America has certainly undergone a transformation, and moves towards democratic governance have been marked and undermined by the continued ‘ubiquity’ of violent actors (Torres-Rivas, 1999: 287).

Maybe the country failed because at the time of the demobilisation, there were no opportunities for work made available. The creation of jobs would have been the most essential thing to do to mobilise people and see where they could work. Many people were left [when the war was over] and when they had no money, they resorted to crime.

Interview with prisoner in Salvadoran prison, 2002