In this dissertation I seek to answer three questions about peace communities; groups of civilians that seek to limit physical violence in the places they live using collective nonviolent methods of civil resistance. Under what conditions do peace communities emerge in conflict-affected territories? How do civilians develop the nonviolent capacity necessary to initiate peace communities? Under what conditions do peace communities attain success? First, I contend that peace communities are more likely to form in territories that experience the threat of collective violence, and in places where at least one peace community already exists. I use a new dataset on peace communities to test the argument in Colombia. Despite this, not all populations possess the capacity to initiate collective action under these conditions. I therefore suggest that nonviolent first movers are crucial to explaining this outcome, as their actions trigger a sorting process in their communities which leads to a selection bias for nonviolence in the remaining population. I test the argument in the case of the AsociaciĆ³n de Trabajadores Campesinos del Carare, drawing on interview and archival data. The final argument is the about the fortunes of peace communities. I argue that
whether or not peace communities achieve success is largely explained by the
consistency of NGO support. I test this argument in Colombia using the new dataset
that I developed. Theoretically, I expected to find that conflict-related violence would
be lower in municipalities where peace communities that enjoy consistent NGO
support are present compared to those with no peace communities. However, what I
find is that conflict-related violence is greater in municipalities with peace communities
compared to those without them, regardless of the consistency of NGO support. Given
data limitations, this part of the argument is difficult to test, but preliminary results are
not supportive.