Juan F. Vargas

Special Data Feature; The Severity of the Colombian Conflict: Cross-Country Datasets Versus New Micro-Data

This article compares the treatment of Colombia in large cross-country conflict datasets with the information of a unique dataset on the Colombian conflict (CERAC). The big datasets display a strong tendency to record fewer killings than does CERAC. Moreover, when the big datasets provide annual time series on the conflict, these figures look either erratic or flat compared to CERAC’s and often move in different directions. The article also examines the criteria of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) for dataset inclusion and finds them considerably more restrictive than CERAC’s. The primary differences are that UCDP generally excludes attacks purely on civilians and any activity of illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. It is argued here that these omissions impoverish our perception of many civil wars. A calculated modified series based on UCDP methodology and CERAC raw information closes 56% of the gap between the two approaches. The remainder appears to derive mainly from a number of small events in CERAC but not UCDP, reflecting the limits of English-language press coverage of Colombia, upon which UCDP data is based. The gap with other big datasets is also closed. The dynamics of the lower-bound UCDP curve clearly resemble the modified CERAC curve, so UCDP does reasonably well on its own terms. A brief Northern Ireland case study is consistent with our Colombia conclusions. The article concludes with a recommendation for conflict researchers to prioritize the construction of more micro-datasets that will facilitate detailed studies of conflict intensity and its dynamics.

True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why

Anti-insurgent militias and states attempt to erode insurgent groups’ capacities and co-opt insurgent fighters by promising and providing benefits. They do so to create a perception that the insurgency is unraveling and to harness inside information to prosecute more effective counterinsurgency campaigns. Why do some insurgents defect to a paramilitary group and others exit the war by demobilizing, while still others remain loyal to their group? This article presents the first empirical analysis of these questions, connecting insurgents’ motivations for joining, wartime experiences, and organizational behavior with decisions to defect. A survey of ex-combatants in Colombia shows that individuals who joined for ideological reasons are less likely to defect overall but more likely to side-switch or demobilize when their group deviates from its ideological precepts. Among fighters who joined for economic reasons, political indoctrination works to decrease their chances of demobilization and defection to paramilitaries, while opportunities for looting decrease economically motivated combatants’ odds of defection.

Military Empowerment and Civilian Targeting in Civil War

Civilians constitute a large share of casualties in civil wars across the world. They are targeted to create fear and punish allegiance with the enemy. This maximizes collaboration with the perpetrator and strengthens the support network necessary to consolidate control over contested regions. I develop a model of the magnitude and structure of civilian killings in civil wars involving two armed groups who ght over territorial control. Armies secure compliance through a combination of carrots and sticks. In turn, civilians di¤er from each other in their intrinsic preference towards one group. I explore the e¤ect of the empowerment of one of the groups in the civilian death toll. There are two e¤ects that go in opposite directions. While a direct e¤ect makes the powerful group more lethal, there is an indirect e¤ect by which the number of civilians who align with that group increases, leaving less enemy supporters to kill. I study the conditions under which there is one dominant e¤ect and illustrate the predictions using sub-national longitudinal data for Colombias civil war.

The persistent Colombian conflict: subnational analysis of the duration of violence

Focusing on the Colombian armed conflict, this paper develops for the first time a within-country analysis of violence duration. It examines a wide range of factors potentially associated with violence duration at the municipal level for the period 1988–2004, including geographic factors, economic and social variables, institutional characteristics, victimization variables and government intervention. It individuates the most robust correlates of the persistence of localized conflict, both across specifications and using different econometric models of duration analysis. Results suggest that violence in Colombia is more persistent in places where illegal rents are available. Better quality institutions and a more active military are in turn associated with shorter conflict episodes.

Colombia: Dealing in conservation

Colombias decades-long Civil conflict, which resulted in more than 8 million victims ([ 1 ][1]), has never been so close to an end. The recently signed peace agreement ([ 2 ][2]) between the government and The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) covers a number of key areas, including

Sovereign Risk and Armed Conflict: An Event-study for Colombia

We study the causal effect of recent landmark events of the Colombian armed conflict on the foreign perception of sovereign risk, as measured by the price of the Credit Default Swap (CDS) of Colombian bonds. We construct a Synthetic Control Group to use as the non-conflict counterfactual of the Colombian CDS price and compare its behavior around relevant conflict-event dates with that of the actual (conflict-affected) Colombian CDS. Results suggest that the impact of conflict on the foreign perception of sovereign risk is sizable but rather idiosyncratic, and depends on the political context surrounding each event.

Vote choice and legacies of violence: evidence from the 2014 Colombian presidential elections

Elections are regularly held in countries facing ongoing civil conflicts, including in India, Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Citizens frequently go to the polls having endured years of violence between armed groups and governments. A growing literature questions how violence conditions voters’ support for incumbents versus challengers, and for hawks versus doves. We analyze this relationship in the context of the 2014 presidential election in Colombia, an election defined by candidates’ positions on negotiations with the country’s largest insurgent group, the FARC. Our results show an inverted-U relationship between past insurgent violence and vote share for President Juan Manuel Santos, the pro-peace candidate: he performed better in communities with moderate levels of insurgent violence and poorly in communities with both very high and very low violence. We also find that areas where the FARC originally mounted attacks 50 years ago more strongly supported Santos. The article concludes by comparing these results with past studies of violence and vote choice in Israel, Turkey, and Spain.

Can SMS Technology Improve Low Take-up of Social Benefits?

Abstract Low take-up of stigma-free social benefits is often blamed on information asymmetries or administrative barriers. There is limited evidence on which of these potential channels is more salient in which contexts. We designed and implemented a randomized controlled trial to assess the extent to which informational barriers are responsible for the prevalent low take-up of government benefits among Colombian conflict-driven internal refugees. We provide timely information on benefits eligibility via SMS to a random half of the displaced household that migrated to Bogotá over a 6-month period. We show that improving information increases benefits’ take-up. However, the effect is small and only true for certain type of benefits. Hence, consistent with previous experimental literature, the availability of timely information explains only part of the low take-up rates and the role of administrative barriers and bureaucratic processes should be tackled to increase the well-being of internal refugees in Colombia.

Rebellion, Repression and Welfare

I develop a dynamic model of social conflict whereby manifest grievances of the poor generate the incentive of taking over political power violently. Rebellion can be an equilibrium outcome depending on the level of preexisting inequality between the poor and the ruling elite, the relative military capabilities of the two groups and the destructiveness of conflict. Once a technology of repression is introduced, widespread fear reduces the parameter space for which rebellion is an equilibrium outcome. However, I show that repression-driven peace comes at a cost as it produces a welfare loss to society.

The environmental impact of civil conflict: The deforestation effect of paramilitary expansion in Colombia

Despite a growing body of literature on how environmental degradation can fuel civil war, the reverse effect, namely that of conflict on environmental outcomes, is relatively understudied. From a theoretical point of view this effect is ambiguous, with some forces pointing to pressures for environmental degradation and some pointing in the opposite direction. Hence, the overall effect of conflict on the environment is an empirical question. We study this relationship in the case of Colombia. We combine a detailed satellite-based longitudinal dataset on forest cover across municipalities over the period 1990-2010 with a comprehensive panel of conflict-related violent actions by paramilitary militias. We first provide evidence that paramilitary activity significantly reduces the share of forest cover in a panel specification that includes municipal and time fixed effects. Then we confirm these findings by taking advantage of a quasi-experiment that provides us with an exogenous source of variation for the expansion of the paramilitary. Using the distance to the region of Uraba, the epicenter of such expansion, we instrument paramilitary activity in each cross-section for which data on forest cover is available. As a falsification exercise, we show that the instrument ceases to be relevant after the paramilitaries largely demobilized following peace negotiations with the government. Further, after the demobilization the deforestation effect of the paramilitaries disappears. We explore a number of potential mechanisms that may explain the conflict-driven deforestation, and show evidence suggesting that paramilitary violence generates large outflows of people in order to secure areas for growing illegal crops, exploit mineral resources, and engage in extensive agriculture. In turn, these activities are associated with deforestation.