The Logic of Coercive Kidnapping: Evidence from Colombia

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Conflict: Evidence from Colombia

Abstract

Global kidnapping has spiked dramatically over the last several decades, as violent, political organizations (VPOs) including rebels, terrorists, and paramilitaries abduct civilians in war. While ISIL, Al Qaeda, and the FARC ravage communities and confound policymakers, there has been limited scholarly examination of this tool of coercion. Addressing this gap, I examine what I call “coercive kidnapping” – forceful abduction accompanied by demands that condition the victim's release. Why do some VPOs engage in kidnapping whereas others do not, and what explains the variation in kidnapping targeting and demands? I argue that coercive kidnapping is primarily used to enforce existing extraction schemes. VPOs that depend on taxes and protection money should be most likely to kidnap, while VPOs with significant non-extortive funding – voluntary support from local or diaspora communities, funding from the state, or resource endowments – are not expected to kidnap. Moreover, kidnapping depends on specialized, individual roles assigned to group members: to take, guard, and feed a hostage, and to negotiate his return. Thus, operationally complex VPOs will kidnap more frequently. Regarding the paper's second research question, groups that kidnap use targeting and demands to signal their reputation to an audience of potential recruits. VPOs who recruit locally will use kidnapping to foster a reputation for reliability, making explicit demands for an exchange, and releasing hostages alive. Conversely, VPOs lacking a local base of recruits will use kidnapping to signal resolve, making political demands and killing more hostages. To test these hypotheses, I leverage quantitative analysis of nearly 40,000 individual kidnappings from the Colombian civil war, as well as qualitative evidence from extensive interviews with the perpetrators: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), National Liberation Army (ELN), April 19th Movement (M-19), and United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Author

• Danielle Gilbert, George Washington University