IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v14y2024i9p188-d1480850.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Personalist Leadership Style of Fabio Vásquez: A Case Study on the Origins of the ELN

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Carlos Sánchez Sierra

    (Department of Social Communication and Journalism, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá 110231, Colombia)

  • Alfonso R. Vergaray

    (Department of Social Sciences, Texas A&M International University, Laredo, TX 78041, USA)

Abstract

This article examines the personalist leadership style of Fabio Vásquez, a founding member of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the Colombian guerrilla group. Personalism, as a theoretical framework for understanding Latin American leaders, has primarily focused on traditional political practices, emphasizing the tensions and conflicts among formal institutions, political parties, and personalist politicians. While these studies provide valuable insights, they overlook leaders who operate outside conventional political structures who also rely on personalist strategies to attract and retain followers. This article seeks to bridge this gap by presenting a case study of Vásquez’s leadership style. In an era marked by the resurgence of populism and renewed interest in the effects of personalism on conventional politics, this article argues that examining personalist leadership within revolutionary insurgent groups that reject conventional party politics is necessary for a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. In particular, it offers a comprehensive overview of how Vásquez’s personalist strategies shaped the ELN’s early insurgency, ultimately revealing the strengths and vulnerabilities of such leadership within revolutionary movements.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Carlos Sánchez Sierra & Alfonso R. Vergaray, 2024. "The Personalist Leadership Style of Fabio Vásquez: A Case Study on the Origins of the ELN," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-19, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:14:y:2024:i:9:p:188-:d:1480850
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/14/9/188/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/14/9/188/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:14:y:2024:i:9:p:188-:d:1480850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.