Protest Policing after Civil War: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Colombia

• In Event: Opposition and Protest: Participation and Consequences

Abstract

Police forces play important roles in countries affected by violent armed conflict. As societies emerge from violent conflict, interactions with police officers affect individuals’ sense of safety and security, shape perceptions of the state, and may contribute to renewed violence While scholars have begun to examine efforts to improve police interaction with the public through community policing, they have paid less attention to police responses to protests. (Blair, Karim, and Morse 2019; Karim 2020; Arriola et al. 2021;Curtice 2021; Curtice and Behlendorf 2021) Countries emerging from conflict frequently face protests as societal groups make new demands on the state, express frustration at failures to deliver on promises, or mobilize during elections. The way police respond to protests affect public perception of the state.

This paper examines when the public supports forceful police responses to protests. Police behavior frequently reflects public demands and electoral incentives for the politicians. Responses to protest pose a dilemma for politicians in the aftermath of large-scale armed violence. On the one hand, a robust response could project a sense of security, but on the other hand, forceful responses may fuel grievances by previously excluded groups and contribute to renewed violence. The frequent resort to police repression in postwar societies suggests that at least some segments of the public support the use of force.

We posit that public support for the use of force against protesters reflects perceptions of threat that evolves with the changing security environment. We test this hypothesis using an original survey experiment conducted in Colombia, focusing on regions affected by the armed conflict. Despite a steep decline in public support for the police, our survey experiment finds significant variation in support for use of force against protestors. We find that individuals are more likely to support police use of force against protestors when they perceive them as threatening, either because of violent tactics, or because they involve groups associated with the threat of organized crime in conflict-affected regions. Moreover, this support rests more on peoples’ perception of emerging security threats from armed groups that are currently operating, than on their experience with the prior conflict.

The results point to a determinant of public opinion on state institutions – the evolving threat environment – that has received little attention in research on conflict-affected countries. While prior research has examined how perception of police and the state reflect legacies of civil war, our results show that attitudes depend less on the prior war than on ongoing threats. We build on recent research that unpacks how violence evolves and changes in the aftermath of civil war. Our findings highlight the need for more research into how new and emerging threats affect public perceptions of the state in the aftermath of civil war.

Authors

• Miguel Garcia-Sanchez

• Louis-Alexandre Berg, Georgia State University