Movement of the people: Violence and internal displacement

Individuals internally displaced by conflict are a prominent feature of wars, political violence and other forms of repression. We suggest that a subnational analysis of internally displaced person (IDP) generation can help us determine the extent to which more specific flight-precipitating factors can account for individuals’ behaviors. In particular, we are interested in how different conflict actors and the interactions of these actors affect the production of internally displaced persons. We suggest that some types of conflict actors are more likely to be responsible for greater numbers of internally displaced persons because of their political strategies. We focus on one of the most complex and yet data-rich environments in which the problem of internal displacement has been profound—Colombia. Using extensive data on internally displaced persons in Colombia among its over 1100 municipalities, we examine our expectations using negative binomial analyses to better understand the dynamics of conflict actors, the violence they perpetrate and internal displacement. We find that the identity of the conflict actor does make a difference in producing more internally displaced persons and that conflict between certain conflict actors is especially likely to produce more displaced persons.