The Legacies of Civil War on Political Attitudes: Evidence from Colombia

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

Abstract

How does violence exposure during civil war affect individual political attitudes? Using rich micro-level data and an instrumental variable approach, I present evidence for a persistent effect of non-state armed groups (NSAG) presence on a set of political attitudes so far unexplored by the literature on the political legacies of civil war. The data comes from a unique longitudinal household survey conducted between 2010 and 2016 in 224 rural communities of Colombia, a country affected by a 50-year-long civil war. I instrument NSAG presence with the distance from rural communities to natural parks, which are used by these groups to produce illegal drugs, traffic weapons, and hide from state security forces. I find that individuals that inhabit areas where NSAG were present during the most intense phase of the conflict and then left permanently are significantly more prone to support democracy as a form of government and believe in the rule of law, and less prone to justify the use of violence. Contrary to other studies, I find no evidence of a strong relationship between conflict exposure and interest in politics.

Author

• Daniel Quiroga-Angel, New York University