2022 CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Award Winner

The purpose of the CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Prize is to provide recognition to a young scholar who has significantly advanced our understanding of Latin America or the Caribbean. The 2022 competition received 3 nominations, which were evaluated by CALACS’ ad hoc Dissertation Award Committee formed by one member of CALACS’ Board of Directors and two scholars from the CALACS academic community. The Dissertation Award Committee and the CALACS Board of Directors would like to congratulate all of the nominees for the outstanding quality of their dissertations, and thank them and their nominators for participating in the competition. It is with great pleasure that CALACS announces the recipient of the 2022 CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Award:

Dermot O’Connor, Ph.D.

THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LAND REFORM AND

CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA 1936-2018

2021 York University

Supervisor: Dr. Nicola Short

Dr. O’Connor’s exceptional thesis examines a topic that is at the heart of the Colombian armed conflict: the capacity of the national elites to preserve their hegemony and impede any structural changes in the political and economic model. Dr. O’Connor analyzes the agrarian reforms of 1936, 1961, and 1994 and demonstrates why these reforms did not produce equality, stability and peace in Colombia

The dissertation presents a sophisticated and deep analysis of agrarian transformations that uses Gramsci’s concept of ‘passive revolution and arguing that the agrarian reforms only aggravated class conflict due to three factors: lack of redistribution of land belonging to the large estates; a bourgeoisie-peasant alliance in favor of capitalist expansion possible in the context of commodity booms; and the repression exercised by the reactionary elites through counterinsurgency strategies.

Dr. O’Connor brilliantly demonstrates that without a redistributive agrarian reform, there would be no lasting peace in Colombia.

Guided by a historical materialist method of social research, this work’s methodology is rigorous and diversified, incorporating the examination of archival sources, primary documents, demographic and socioeconomic datasets, and an abundance of secondary sources.

Congratulations to Dr. O’Connor for this valuable and remarkable contribution!

For more information on the CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Prize and a list of past winners, please visit  http://www.can-­‐latam.org/dissertation_prize.

For more information on the CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Prize, please contact: calacs@yorku.ca