Beyond the “weakness of the state”: Canada’s intervention in post-agreement Colombia

Abstract

During the 2021 mass protests in Colombia, and while international calls for the Colombian government to respect human rights were intensifying, Canada’s position remained somewhat ambiguous. Part of Canada’s ambiguity can be explained by a simplistic characterization of Colombia as a “weak state.” This article assesses Canada’s bilateral relationship by historizing the development of Colombia’s governance in the key overlapping sectors of security, human rights, and natural resources. From extensive fieldwork, we distinguish two competing rationalities based on the articulation of the notions of “conflict” and “dissent” with the notion of the “rule of law.” We believe that Canada’s bilateral relation with Colombia in the last decades has overlooked the contradictions that exist between democratizing rationalities and antipolitical rationalities. As a result, Canada’s foreign policy has been based on an overly simplistic conception of the relationship between development, security, and the rule of law.