Yet while there’s reason for optimism, the advent of peace risks plunging Colombia into a new kind of conflict, different from any it has faced in living memory, waged in the marble corridors of Bogota rather than in the jungles of Nariño. With the FARC now on the way to full social integration, its former members will have to contend with their political enemies—lawmakers wary over whether the group can make the transition into lawmaking.

Since its days as the seat of a Spanish viceroyalty, and later the first capital of revolutionary leader Simon Bolívar’s short-lived union of South American states, Bogota has for the most part remained a bastion of measured conservatism. A rare regional paragon of solid (if clientelistic) institutionalism, Colombia has been governed by traditional Conservative and Liberal parties that have, in practice, swapped turns at the helm for most of the country’s history (an arrangement they went so far as to actually formalize, for a time, in 1957). While rebranded at various times, they have never truly transformed. On the types of issues that feature prominently within the region—free trade, private-property rights, social inclusion, cooperation with Washington—there is broad agreement, alongside an entrenched protectiveness of the national status quo. Somewhat uniquely for this part of the world, modern Colombia has never endured populist revolution; even its most recent military coup, back in 1953, was undertaken at the actual request of its (then-feuding) political parties.

Which is to say that, even amid Colombia’s darkest days at the tail end of the 20th century, where political stability and orthodox economic policy are concerned, it has remained South America’s champion. Through natural disasters, the merciless drug wars of the Escobar era, and multiple, simultaneous Marxist insurgencies, Colombia’s political arena has remained remarkably unchanged in spite of, or indeed because of, such peril. Being perennially assailed by existential threats from beyond its civic arena, Colombia’s political class has, until now, been spared much of the ideological polarization for which its neighborhood is justly famous. The economy, likewise, has exhibited remarkably low volatility: During the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, Colombia was the lone major economy in the region to neither default upon nor reschedule its external debt, despite the fact that this period coincided with the peak of its narco-anarchy.

While the upside of this system may be incontrovertible, so too are its costs. The de facto cordoning-off of the political space to outsiders has frozen the status quo, fomenting the frustrations of those looking in (to say nothing of the guerrillas themselves). While Colombia is arguably Latin America’s most solid, resilient democracy, it is likewise among its least inclusive. Its economic inequality is the highest in South America. Its well-developed urban centers like Bogota, Cartagena, and Medellin stand in stark contrast to the harsh poverty of the countryside. The era of large-scale agrarian reforms elsewhere on the continent bypassed Colombia’s rural hinterlands, and social spending is relatively low (albeit rising in recent years). Even while deep political polarization has long been absent, on the streets it remains robust: A 2014 Barometro poll found that a rising percentage of Colombians today identify as either strong left or strong right, crowding the tail ends of the political spectrum. The same study found that while a majority of Colombians considers politics “very important,” only around one-quarter have faith in existing political parties—one of the lowest levels in Latin America.