IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/020225.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ideology and Rifles: the Agrarian Origins of Civil Conflict in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • María del Pilar López-Uribe
  • Fabio Sanchez Torres

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between land dispossessions of peasants and the origin of the civil conflict in Colombia. Using a matching-pair instrumental variable approach, we show that the historical dispossession of peasants' lands by landlords that led to the rise of peasant grievances is associated with the activity of the rural guerrilla movement -Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) - during the first stage of the Colombian civil conflict ( 1964-1985). We exploit the random variation in floods to identify the effect of peasants' land dispossessions during 1914-1946 on the rise of rural guerrilla movements. Using a novel municipal-level data set, the study documents that municipalities experiencing floods b etween 1914 and 1946 were substantially more likely to experience land dispossession than municipalities that did not. Floods temporarily worsened the conditions of the land and its value, facilitating the dispossession of peasant land by large landowners. We propose two mechanisms through which previous land dispossession resulted in the emergence of rebel-armed groups. On the one hand, the ideological cohesion stemming from radical liberals and communists exacerbated the grievances and helped to shape the political objectives of the rebel armed groups. On the other hand, exposure to prior violent events gave military training, access to weapons, and military experience to the rural population, that likely emboldened the formation of rebel groups.

Suggested Citation

  • María del Pilar López-Uribe & Fabio Sanchez Torres, 2022. "Ideology and Rifles: the Agrarian Origins of Civil Conflict in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 20225, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
  • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:020225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/58384/dcede2022-21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarsons, Heather, 2015. "Rainfall and conflict: A cautionary tale," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 62-72.
    2. Hodler, Roland & Raschky, Paul A., 2014. "Economic shocks and civil conflict at the regional level," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 530-533.
    3. Grossman, Herschel I, 1999. "Kleptocracy and Revolutions," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 267-283, April.
    4. Guardado, Jenny, 2018. "Land tenure, price shocks, and insurgency: Evidence from Peru and Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 256-269.
    5. Sánchez, Fabio & López-Uribe, María del Pilar & Fazio, Antonella, 2010. "Land Conflicts, Property Rights, and the Rise of the Export Economy in Colombia, 1850–1925," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 378-399, June.
    6. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    7. Sharma, Kishor, 2006. "The political economy of civil war in Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1237-1253, July.
    8. Christian Dippel & Robert Gold & Stephan Heblich & Rodrigo Pinto, 2017. "Instrumental Variables and Causal Mechanisms: Unpacking the Effect of Trade on Workers and Voters," CESifo Working Paper Series 6816, CESifo.
    9. Brito, Dagobert L. & Intriligator, Michael D., 1985. "Conflict, War, and Redistribution," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 943-957, December.
    10. Sánchez Fabio & Jairo Núñez, 2000. "La geografía y el desarrollo económico en colombia: una aproximación municipal," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, September.
    11. Cederman, Lars-Erik & Weidmann, Nils B. & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, 2011. "Horizontal Inequalities and Ethnonationalist Civil War: A Global Comparison," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 478-495, August.
    12. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    13. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    14. Castells-Quintana, David & Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & McDermott, Thomas K.J., 2022. "Population displacement and urban conflict: Global evidence from more than 3300 flood events," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    15. Weinert, Richard S., 1966. "Violence in Pre-Modern Societies: Rural Colombia," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 340-347, June.
    16. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler & Dominic Rohner, 2009. "Beyond greed and grievance: feasibility and civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 1-27, January.
    17. Christian Dippel & Andreas Ferrara & Stephan Heblich, 2020. "Causal mediation analysis in instrumental-variables regressions," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(3), pages 613-626, September.
    18. Azam, Jean-Paul & Mesnard, Alice, 2003. "Civil War and the Social Contract," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 115(3-4), pages 455-475, June.
    19. Albert Berry, 2002. "¿Colombia encontró por fin una reforma agraria que funcione?," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 4(6), pages 24-70, January-J.
    20. Helmut Bester & Karl Wärneryd, 2006. "Conflict and the Social Contract," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(2), pages 231-249, July.
    21. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    22. Vestby, Jonas & Buhaug, Halvard & von Uexkull, Nina, 2021. "Why do some poor countries see armed conflict while others do not? A dual sector approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    2. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    3. Stoop, Nik & Verpoorten, Marijke & van der Windt, Peter, 2019. "Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 660-674.
    4. Ang, James B. & Gupta, Satyendra Kumar, 2018. "Agricultural yield and conflict," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 397-417.
    5. Mehlum, Halvor & Ove Moene, Karl, 2011. "Aggressive elites and vulnerable entrepreneurs - trust and cooperation in the shadow of conflict," Memorandum 16/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    6. Eoin McGuirk & Marshall Burke, 2020. "The Economic Origins of Conflict in Africa," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3940-3997.
    7. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Within-group heterogeneity and civil war," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 153-177, May.
    8. Dominic Rohner, 2010. "From rags to rifles: deprivation, conflict and the welfare state," IEW - Working Papers 463, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo & Esposito, Elena & Valmori, Simona, 2016. "Malaria Risk and Civil Violence," CEPR Discussion Papers 11496, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Brunnschweiler Christa N. & Lujala Päivi, 2017. "Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 23(4), pages 1-7, December.
    11. David Siroky & Carolyn M. Warner & Gabrielle Filip-Crawford & Anna Berlin & Steven L. Neuberg, 2020. "Grievances and rebellion: Comparing relative deprivation and horizontal inequality," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(6), pages 694-715, November.
    12. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    13. Caroline T. Witte & Martijn J. Burger & Elena Ianchovichina, 2020. "Subjective Well‐Being and Peaceful Uprisings," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 120-158, February.
    14. Achim Ahrens, 2015. "Civil conflicts in Africa: Climate, economic shocks, nighttime lights and spill-over effects," SEEC Discussion Papers 1501, Spatial Economics and Econometrics Centre, Heriot Watt University.
    15. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," CERDI Working papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    16. Horatiu A. Rus, 2012. "Environmental Depletion, Governance, and Conflict," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(4), pages 1305-1332, April.
    17. Hannes Mueller, 2016. "Growth and Violence: Argument for a Per Capita Measure of Civil War," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(331), pages 473-497, July.
    18. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    19. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    20. Flores Thomas Edward, 2014. "Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 5-31, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Land reform; Land Conflict; Property Rights; Weather shocks; Civil Conflict.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N46 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • N56 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:col:000089:020225. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.html .

    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.