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

• In Event: Central and Local Actors in Conflict and Peace Processes

Abstract

Despite a 2016 peace agreement, threats to stability in Colombia remain. With the demobilization of the country’s largest rebel group as a source of local governance, the state faces the urgent tasks of reestablishing authority in rural areas, preventing other armed groups from gaining a foothold in rural communities, and mitigating violence at the local level. We present results from an experimental evaluation of the ComunPaz program, an intervention designed to close the governance gap by strengthening and integrating state security institutions with communal mechanisms for dispute resolution. The program focuses in particular on Police Inspectors and Community Action Councils (JACs). Police Inspectors are government officials mandated to adjudicate non-violent crimes in rural communities and liaise between civilians and the rest of the police force when violent crimes occur. JACs are communal institutions that represent the principal axis of local governance in rural Colombia. Among other goals, the intervention aims to (1) strengthen citizens’ understanding of the role of each of these institutions as providers of justice and security; (2) establish dedicated, efficient conflict resolution units in all JACs; and (3) improve coordination between Police Inspectors and JACs, exploiting complementarities between them and leveraging the comparative advantages of each. Beyond the relevance of this study to the academic literatures on peacebuilding and statebuilding after civil war, our affiliation with the Colombian government and the timeliness of our project (conducted in the midst of an ongoing peace process) make us uniquely situated to influence policymaking in Colombia

Authors

• Manuel Moscoso, Brown University

• Robert A. Blair, Brown University

• Michael Lee Weintraub, Universidad de los Andes