Buying off the Revolution: Evidence from the Colombian National Peasant Movement

• In Event: The Political Economy of Rural Mobilization and Threat in the Developing World

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between democratization and redistribution during periods of revolutionary threats. Far from causing an increase in broad redistribution (e.g. social spending), I show that the state organization of a social movement that extends the political rights of the threatening group can be used to identify rebel leaders and provide private goods to them, in return for preventing social unrest and demobilizing their supporters. I study the context of the organization by the state of the most important social movement in Colombian history -the National Peasant Movement (ANUC)- during the decades of a threat of Communist revolution (1957-1985), when the government gave ANUC direct political participation in the executive branch and economic support. Using three newly digitized data sets of the Colombian municipalities, I find that this reform did not lead to higher broad redistribution towards the peasantry but it led to an increase in targeted redistribution in terms of public jobs and lands. By matching the names of the peasant leaders to the beneficiaries of the land reform, evidence suggests that peasant leaders disproportionately benefited from land reform and that targeted redistribution towards the peasant leaders was a mechanism to restrain the Communist threat. Finally, I find suggestive evidence that buying off the rebel leaders was an effective counter-revolutionary strategy as it led to less revolutionary activities after the support to ANUC was terminated (1972-1985).

Author

• Maria Del Pilar Lopez Uribe, London School of Economics