Mémoire
| Résumé : | The signing of the 2016 peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP can be considered as a turning point in the country’s history, substantially transforming the political, social and economic reality of Colombia, and effectively moving the country from the conflict to the post-conflict period. At the international level, the United States and the European Union, as the country’s largest donors, have a long history of providing development assistance and support relating to the armed conflict and peace efforts. The approaches adopted by the two actors during the conflict vary substantially, and even oppose each other, with research suggesting that the strategies implemented were established as a direct response and counterweight to the other’s initiatives. The present research takes into account the juxtaposed construction of donor identities in the conflict period and demonstrates how the discourse of the two actors has evolved in the post-conflict period. Despite the peace process, the country still faces numerous challenges relating both to development obstacles and increases in violence. Within this context, and based on a social constructivist approach, the study considers that the values pertaining to development and peacebuilding, as presented by the two actors, are ultimately dependent on their interests and the identity they wish to construct as donors at the international landscape. The research is carried out through discourse analysis, with the selected corpus based on key development strategy documents which assume the connection between development and peacebuilding. After their analysis, each actor’s documents are compared to each other, revealing the evolving values and interests presented by both donors. The study concludes that the actors have generally maintained opposing discourses on development and the establishment of peace in the country, in many ways continuing the discourse juxtaposition of the conflict period. It does however note a slight convergence of US discourse towards the one adopted by the EU, at least in certain documents and specific development issues. In particular, while both donors have aimed at presenting themselves as key actors in the peacebuilding process, the US has largely maintained an approach reflecting its policies from the conflict period, primarily concerned with security issues and coca cultivation. The EU on the other hand has maintained its discourse of peacebuilding that has remained relatively stable ever since its first involvement in the country. |
