Coercion and Politics: Civilian Support for Actors with Violent Legacies

• In Event: Civilians and Armed Actors in Contexts of Large-Scale Violence

Abstract

What factors influence citizens’ decisions to resist or endorse coercive actors shifting in their means of political engagement? When and why do civilians offer their passive or active support to demilitarizing militias, rebels, criminals, and autocrats? The paper links research on violent conflict and peace processes with that on authoritarian politics and transitions to democracy. It speaks to the larger question of why individuals support actors that perpetrated large-scale violence against the civilian population and how this civilian support enables the actors to continue to exercise leverage over civilian affairs, govern and win political office. The paper employs data from surveys of 5,000 civilians and of 10,941 ex-combatants in Colombia to reveal variation in civilian attitudes toward demilitarizing militias and rebels. It further exploits information on the electoral fates of paramilitary-allied candidates in Colombia from 2003–2014 to probe the trajectory of citizen endorsement over time. Locality-level information on wartime territorial control, armed group abusiveness, resources and clientalism, narratives of violence, and insecurity serve to evaluate varying explanations of civilian support for actors with violent legacies.

Author

• Sarah Daly, University of Notre Dame