Restoring the Rule of Law After Civil War: A Field Experiment in Colombia

• In Event: Justice, Policing, & Security: Quasi & Experimental Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

States recovering from civil conflict struggle to reestablish authority in areas formerly governed by rebel groups. This project implements and evaluates a new, scalable intervention to close the resulting governance gap by strengthening and integrating governmental and communal mechanisms for dispute resolution. Rather than focus exclusively on state or non-state providers of security and justice, the intervention identifies and exploits previously untapped complementarities between them, providing new peacebuilding policy options for a wide array of post-conflict settings. Our block randomized intervention takes place in Colombia - in four regions formerly controlled by the country's largest rebel group - and focuses on Police Inspectors and Community Action Councils. It aims to help state security and justice providers understand the legal roles and responsibilities of their communal counterparts, and vice versa; help each set of actors identify the comparative advantages of the other, and leverage those comparative advantages to mitigate resource constraints and improve enforcement; encourage the creation of dedicated conflict resolution committees within existing communal institutions, which double as liaisons with the state; and mobilize groups of citizens to codify the social norms that govern their communities, thereby encouraging the use of social sanction and praise as mechanisms for enforcement. Finally, it seeks to cultivate trust and improve coordination across sectors. Treatment communities should have greater satisfaction with dispute resolution services offered by both state and communal authorities; more positive perceptions of the competence and accessibility of state authorities; and a greater degree of agreement among community members about who should resolve disputes and how.

Authors

• Robert A. Blair, Brown University

• Michael Lee Weintraub, Universidad de los Andes

• Andres Vargas, Yale University