From Counterinsurgency to the Peace Agreement in Colombia: A Bayesian Approximation of Human Security

ABSTRACT The objective of this research is to carry out a comparative security analysis of a city traditionally affected by armed conflict in Colombia, during two periods of time when two opposing strategies were employed to overcome armed conflicts: a counterinsurgency policy and the peace agreement, using the Human Security (HS) restricted approach. This is one of the first studies to establish specific Bayesian analyzes using primary data obtained directly from communities. The results show that the peace dialogs are more effective in addressing the actions that threaten a population’s human security, especially those that come from the insurgent groups (i.e., FARC). However, in a scenario of multiple armed actors and criminal activities, a strategy focused solely on one of them is not enough to guarantee optimal conditions for human security.