The political transition that began in Nicaragua in 1990 marked the first peace agreement in the region, preceding those in El Salvador in 1992 and Guatemala in 1996. It served as a "laboratory" during a time of great political upheaval—the fall of the Berlin Wall—which challenged the bipolar world order. One element to consider—in light of global events, but without neglecting their regional and local impacts—would be the analysis of the political moments, and their economic and social repercussions, that preceded and accompanied the peace negotiations in Central America between 1990 and 1996. Studying the peculiarities and similarities among these specific historical episodes of armed conflict aims to understand how the different attempts to end them were embedded in and/or interfered with the transformations linked to neoliberal globalization in the countries in question.

In the case of Colombia, the 2016 peace agreement has precedents of more than three decades of transitional efforts dating back to 1980, when the process with the FARC and the ELN failed, but that of the M-19 - and other insurgent groups such as the EPL or PRT - led to the Constituent Assembly of 1991, which implied both a hope for peace and an opening to neoliberalism.

This period coincided with a time when much of the regional agenda of Central and South America converged on the intention of jointly promoting peace, but behind the scenes, it contained the desire to stimulate economic development in the region that would allow for better access to the international market. It was in this spirit that the multilateral body known as the Contadora Group was conceived, bringing together Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela in 1983 to jointly promote peace in Central America (Morales, 1995). This body paved the way for the Esquipulas Agreement—signed by El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica between 1986 and 1987—to attempt to achieve a stable and lasting peace in Central America. It also spurred the creation of the Rio Group, which, in turn, later led, in 2010, to the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

However, although for the present proposal the relevance of Central America and Colombia lies in the convergence in a regional agenda -with similarities- through which it was sought to position Latin America and the Caribbean in the global neoliberal agenda, it is also important to address the contextual and chronological differences in the transitional processes, which lead to the configuration of more or less distinct national agendas regarding the solution of the "agrarian problem".

The Salvadoran peace agreement broadly advocated for "sustained economic and social development of the country" (Chapultepec Accords, 1992), in which the "agrarian problem" of land tenure and distribution was considered secondary or included in a "minimum platform of commitments." In the Nicaraguan peace accords, although the issue of agrarian property was central to the discussions before and immediately after the peace accords, the institutional mechanisms to provide a lasting solution to the problem were delayed and, when they existed on paper, proved insufficient, precipitating the country into a new cycle of violence that would again affect rural areas (Rueda, 2017). Similarly, in Guatemala, the Socioeconomic and Agrarian Situation Agreement was signed (Government of Guatemala and Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, 1996), one of the last agreements signed by the opposition to the oligarchy that maintained considerable power in the post-war period. The Agreement was implemented with the first mechanisms of the land market (Land Fund, land registry, and regularization), but with limited results in land redistribution and regularization. This led to the persistence of agrarian conflicts years later, compounded by others over natural resources.

With the above in mind, it is important to emphasize that the Central American peace processes coincided with the "market-assisted agrarian reforms" advocated by the World Bank. Meanwhile, in the case of Colombia, the 2016 peace agreement has established as its starting and central point the implementation of a Comprehensive Rural Reform (CRR) aimed at "building a new paradigm of development and territorial well-being for the benefit of broad sectors of the population who have hitherto been victims of exclusion and hopelessness" (Havana Peace Talks, 2016, p. 3).

For the Working Group, it is crucial to investigate the exogenous and endogenous mechanisms and actors that drive the existence or end of internal armed conflicts, and how they have sought to influence rural policy decisions that determine the course of transition processes and, therefore, the elimination or perpetuation of conditions that reproduce war. This implies understanding the diverse origins of the actors and the territorial scales at which they operate. In this sense, it is important to observe how armed conflicts are exacerbated by social struggles, crises stemming from the transition processes themselves, or incomplete democratic transitions. In this case, issues such as the (re)emergence of extractive practices represent a turning point in the understanding of rural territories, which involves the inclusion or exclusion of rural populations. This generates responses through which these populations either integrate themselves into development agendas or mobilize their own agendas.

Why start from rural areas?

The long-term armed conflicts that have occurred in the Latin American countries on which the Working Group will focus are related to conflicts linked to unequal agrarian structures. This constant, albeit with nuances, has historically defined the construction of sociopolitical and power relations in these societies. Such inequalities have been a shaping element of the origins of internal armed conflicts. It is important to emphasize that inequalities in access to land have been and continue to be a recurring factor in social uprisings throughout the subcontinent. However, not everywhere have these conflicts taken on the dynamics of an internal armed conflict and the subsequent pursuit of peace agreements. In this sense, it is important to identify common denominators of the prolonged state of armed conflict in Central American countries and Colombia, and the nature of the political transitions following the peace agreements with respect to the repositioning of unequal rural agendas that existed at the very root of the conflict.

Given the above, it is necessary to consider how rural territories have been constructed, both before and after transitional periods, from the perspective of their inhabitants, but also from the perspective of the greater or lesser importance given to them at the national or regional level, the demand for their resources, and their potential position as a geostrategic element for development plans. This analysis examines: 1) how they fit (or do not fit) into national and rural development strategies; 2) whether and how the population participates in these territorial reconfigurations; and 3) whether the redefinition of social categories is affected, who it addresses, and whom it excludes, including or excluding ex-combatants—understanding that a significant aspect observed in most armed conflicts is forced displacement, which requires solutions during peace negotiations.

Within the framework of comparative politics analysis, various efforts have emerged to understand and conceptualize political change, its implications, and its depth. The existence of a broad theoretical body focused on political transitions as a category of analysis began to gain traction in the late 1980s within political science, thanks to authors such as Guillermo O'Donnell (2015), Philippe Schmitter, and Juan Linz (1990), particularly through an analysis of crises or breakdowns in non-democratic governments (Munck, 2002a and 2002b). For these authors, a transition consists of the shift from one political regime to another, which implies a redefinition of social agreements and institutions (Munck, 2006). Studies of political regimes, although their meanings have varied, have consistently considered the political regime as a series of norms, institutions, and agreements that regulate the course of a society, defining fundamental aspects of who has what rights and under what conditions.

Political transitions can occur through more or less radical ruptures in social events, or through gradual institutional reforms. In both cases, the participating actors are decisive in the direction these transitions take, since the acceptance of the norms and institutions that emerge from the transition will indicate the degree of consolidation of a regime, as well as the extent of variations that occur (Munck, 2006). This perspective, although limited, becomes relevant when discussing Peace Agreements, signed by one or more actors, that seek to renegotiate the rules governing the operation of a regime. In this case, the acceptance, participation, and commitment of the actors who signed the peace agreements allow us to differentiate between: modes of transition, types or subtypes of regime, and the varying degrees of democratic consolidation achieved by emerging regimes.

It is worth noting that, in addition to the participating actors—and the extent to which they manage to position their agendas during a period of rule redefinition—political transitions take on nuances that depend on the strength of pre-existing institutions. For this reason, the political outcomes of a transition are not predetermined, and just as democratic transitions occur, so too can democratic deconsolidation or new/old forms of political authoritarianism. Or, as can be argued from analyses of hybrid regimes (Morlino, 2009): predominant forms of a regime with a democratic or authoritarian predominance, but with internal contours that preclude a territorially homogeneous classification.

This approach invites us to question the notion of "rupture," firstly because history, for example in Central America, shows that political ruptures (regime changes) do not necessarily correspond to structural ruptures. Observing the development policies implemented in contemporary times in Guatemala, under anti-communist military regimes or civilian regimes after 1985, and in Nicaragua, under the Sandinista revolution, reveals that they shared the same vision based on large landholdings with a wage-earning population (whether private—in Guatemala—or state-controlled—in Nicaragua). Similarly, if we observe from a temporal perspective, the Marxist-inspired Nicaraguan Sandinistas maintained—under a form of state ownership—the structures of large landholdings inherited from the liberal period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Roux, 2019, 2022).

Secondly, while it may be tempting to consider the internal and geopolitical upheavals of countries undergoing peace processes after long periods of internal armed conflict from the perspective of transitology, this approach must be critically examined. Indeed, simply observing the transition processes in Central American countries leads us to reflections similar to those made by Dufy and Thiriot (2013, 19) on Africa and post-Soviet countries: “political change has most often gone hand in hand with economic change (transition to a market economy for the former Soviet bloc, structural adjustment and liberal conditionalities for Africa).” Taking Nicaragua as an example, it could even be said that it served as a laboratory for “a school of thought that gradually became an ideology for international cooperation actors and a framework for the structural reform policies implemented by donors” (Dufy and Thiriot, 2013, 20). Whereas for Guatemala the application of Structural Adjustment measures to the letter meant the weakening of the State and the hoarding of public goods, deepening the conditions of poverty of the population and strengthening the structure of wealth concentration.

In the case of Colombia, the transitional process has several contrasts between failed peace talks, modes of "territorial pacification" that have involved a military solution - with particular transitional mechanisms regarding the care and reparation of victims (Ramírez 2022) - and the formal achievement of a final agreement - that of 2016 - whose levels of implementation remain very low to this day, even in the territories focused on the implementation of elements such as the Comprehensive Rural Reform and the substitution of illicit crops, leaving latent a high index of social and economic inequality, as well as segregation and a spatial imbalance between rural and urban areas.

In fact, when delving into persistent problems in rural areas within contexts of political transition, one of the first issues that emerges is the dichotomous controversy between the categories of periphery and center, where rurality is designated as the spatial expression of the former. In juxtaposition to this controversy, rurality also appears as a space of constant reconfiguration that needs to be removed from peripheral logic to position itself as a condition of possibility for economic interests in wealth production (Serje, 2010). Herein lies one of the major problems of rurality: it remains confined as a space of "biological wealth" while problems related to the "economic poverty" of those who work it are accentuated. This is a crucial problem of uneven geographical development (Harvey, 2021) that has fostered a clear territorial imbalance in which rural areas appear as lagging spaces or maintained as a rearguard for resource extraction. This unequal development fosters unjust social and economic orders in which the heterogeneous rural population survives in a cyclical process of exclusion.

The effects of unequal development on rural areas have undoubtedly been exacerbated by armed conflicts, where economic disputes have persisted over land concentration and the exploitation of natural resources. These conditions have persisted beyond the peace agreements, which have failed to provide structural solutions and now favor new forms of extractivism. Meanwhile, rural populations seek intranational and international migration as an escape. This cyclical process continues to worsen the already unfavorable living conditions of peasant and ethnic communities. For this reason, the Working Group considers it essential to critically examine transition processes in rural areas, taking into account the potential difficulties in overcoming the dynamics of war in these spaces, as well as the responses or proposals that rural populations themselves can offer for transforming the structural social, economic, and political aspects that give rise to and accompany the armed conflict.