“Organizational Learning“ and Learning by „History as an Argument“ with Non-State Violent Actors. The Example of FARCEP in Colombia

Abstract

The central point of the article is the Colombian FARC-EP, the oldest and, by members, the largest guerrilla and therefore one of the most important non-state violent actors in Latin America. Its potentials for peace- and violence-learning will be analyzed in a normative but at the same time open perspective. The theoretical foundation is a learning model based upon the theory of “organizational learning” and learning by “history as an argument”. The research period reaches from the founding of the guerrilla 1964 until the present. The relationship
to each other will be shown between “organizational learning” and learning by “history as an argument”, and both of them to peace- and violence-learning, whether the one type of learning withstands compared to the other, respectively when and how the one is
questioning the other and which role does this play for the peace negotiations in 2012/2013.