Redistribution of Power in Contexts of Socio-environmental Conflict, Human Rights, and Political Capital: The Case of the El Quimbo Hydroelectric Dam, Colombia

This article investigates the problem of power asymmetries in contexts of socio-environmental conflicts through the case study of the El Quimbo hydroelectric project (Colombia). Such asymmetries are an initial condition of negotiation processes involving state, social, and business actors (specifically, multinational companies). Asymmetries are reconfigured by transforming complex normative resources produced internationally (by the convergence between human rights and the environment) which, when institutionalized nationally, become resources of political capital, and serve agents in the most disadvantaged positions by integrating them into the management of their practical action strategies. The transformation of regulations into a resource of political capital and their use result in the reconfiguration of the distribution of power and an increase in the advocacy capacity of those who use these resources in the regulation of these environmental problems. This case study empirically supports this argument based on a qualitative methodological design of longitudinal process modeling, which integrates a multiscale and multiagent systems approach and uses a large textual database related to the El Quimbo hydroelectric project. This data is analyzed using text mining and natural language processing techniques. The case study yields important practical lessons on the possibility of mobilizing normative resources, which come from the long process of convergence between human rights and the environment, as forms of political capital that have the potential to alter the initial distribution of power in these conflict scenarios and advance the protection of environmental rights.