Revolutionary Insurgents or Conservative Reactionaries? National Liberation Army’s Transnational Expansion in Colombia and Venezuela

The objective of this article is to document the spatial diffusion of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia and Venezuela. Building on a comprehensive database of more than 2100 violent incidents collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Database (ACLED) project and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the paper examines whether the ELN has expanded or relocated into Venezuela following the peace accords with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016. We find that the vast majority of events and fatalities involving the ELN are located in Colombia. Recent years, however, have seen a significant increase in armed actions by the ELN on Venezuelan soil. This expansion was facilitated by the ultimate demobilization of the FARC and the ongoing social, political, and economic implosion that has wracked Venezuela since 2014. The ELN is a typical case of diffusion by escalation marked by a growth in violent events and fatalities in both the country of origin of armed groups and their new destination.