IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joupea/v60y2023i6p985-1001.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does conflict experience affect participatory democracy after war? Evidence from Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Jamie L Shenk

    (Department of Sociology, University of Oxford)

Abstract

Broad political participation is widely accepted as a crucial element of transitions from armed conflict to peace. As such, reforms to increase access to participatory democracy are often written into peace accords. Yet despite this connection between peace and participation in policy, we know relatively little about how the two interact in practice. Who uses participatory institutions? Does civilians’ experience during armed conflict affect how they participate after war ends? This article examines an unlikely case of post-conflict participation in Colombia to answer these questions: the activation and organization of local referenda from below – that is, by conflict-affected communities themselves – to contest the national government’s mining and oil policy. Using an original dataset of 95 municipality-level attempts to organize these referenda ( consultas populares ), I find that both conflict intensity and insurgent group presence have significant and positive effects on consulta activation. The impact of insurgent group presence, however, is mediated by the timing of armed groups’ consolidation of territorial control. I further explore this relationship through a qualitative case study. The results highlight the importance of considering the lingering impact that armed conflict may have on democratic participation beyond electoral politics. Even when communities explicitly avoid references to conflict or victim status in their discourse, experiences during armed conflict can still shape local dynamics of political participation during post-conflict transitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamie L Shenk, 2023. "Does conflict experience affect participatory democracy after war? Evidence from Colombia," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 60(6), pages 985-1001, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:60:y:2023:i:6:p:985-1001
    DOI: 10.1177/00223433221105112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433221105112
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00223433221105112?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jha, Saumitra & Wilkinson, Steven, 2012. "Does Combat Experience Foster Organizational Skill? Evidence from Ethnic Cleansing during the Partition of South Asia," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 883-907, November.
    2. Mahoney, James & Goertz, Gary, 2004. "The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(4), pages 653-669, November.
    3. Bellows, John & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "War and local collective action in Sierra Leone," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1144-1157, December.
    4. Maarten J. Voors & Eleonora E. M. Nillesen & Philip Verwimp & Erwin H. Bulte & Robert Lensink & Daan P. Van Soest, 2012. "Violent Conflict and Behavior: A Field Experiment in Burundi," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 941-964, April.
    5. John-Andrew McNeish, 2017. "A vote to derail extraction: popular consultation and resource sovereignty in Tolima, Colombia," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 1128-1145, May.
    6. Noam Lupu & Leonid Peisakhin, 2017. "The Legacy of Political Violence across Generations," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(4), pages 836-851, October.
    7. Grossman, Guy & Manekin, Devorah & Miodownik, Dan, 2015. "The Political Legacies of Combat: Attitudes Toward War and Peace Among Israeli Ex-Combatants," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 981-1009, October.
    8. Blattman, Christopher, 2009. "From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(2), pages 231-247, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. PatriÌ cia Justino & Wolfgang Stojetz, 2018. "On the Legacies of Wartime Governance," HiCN Working Papers 263, Households in Conflict Network.
    2. Arzu Kibris & Lena Gerling, 2022. "Armed conflict exposure and trust: Evidence from a natural experiment in Turkey," HiCN Working Papers 363, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Bühler, Mathias & Madestam, Andreas, 2023. "State Repression, Exit, and Voice: Living in the Shadow of Cambodia's Killing Fields," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277610, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Mathias Bühler & Andreas Madestam, 2023. "State Repression, Exit, and Voice," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 408, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Dominic Rohner, 2022. "Conflict, Civil Wars and Human Development," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 22.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    6. Kıbrıs, Arzu & Cesur, Resul, 2023. "Does War Foster Cooperation or Parochialism? Evidence from a Natural Experiment among Turkish Conscripts," IZA Discussion Papers 15969, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Francisco Villamil, 2021. "Mobilizing memories: The social conditions of the long-term impact of victimization," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 399-416, May.
    8. Vlachos, Stephanos, 2022. "On war and political radicalization: Evidence from forced conscription into the Wehrmacht," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Sabine C Carey & Belén González, 2021. "The legacy of war: The effect of militias on postwar repression," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(3), pages 247-269, May.
    10. Koenig, Christoph, 2023. "Loose Cannons: War Veterans and the Erosion of Democracy in Weimar Germany," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 167-202, March.
    11. Shelley X Liu, 2022. "How war-related deprivation affects political participation: Evidence from education loss in Liberia," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(3), pages 353-366, May.
    12. Valencia Caicedo, Felipe & Tur-Prats, Ana, 2020. "The Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War," CEPR Discussion Papers 15091, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Patricia Justino & Wolfgang Stojetz, 2019. "Civic legacies of wartime governance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Stefano Costalli & Luigi Moretti & Costantino Pischedda, 2014. "The Economic Costs of Civil War: Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence and the Effects of Ethnic Fractionalization," HiCN Working Papers 184, Households in Conflict Network.
    15. Qin, Wei & Liang, Quanxi & Jiao, Yan & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2022. "Social trust and dividend payouts: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    16. Lisa Cook, 2014. "Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American patents, 1870–1940," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 221-257, June.
    17. Katharina Werner & Ahmed Skali, 2023. "Violent Conflict and Parochial Trust: Lab-in-the-Field and Survey Evidence," HiCN Working Papers 404, Households in Conflict Network.
    18. Alacevich, Caterina & Zejcirovic, Dijana, 2020. "Does violence against civilians depress voter turnout? Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 841-865.
    19. Michal Bauer & Christopher Blattman & Julie Chytilová & Joseph Henrich & Edward Miguel & Tamar Mitts, 2016. "Can War Foster Cooperation?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 249-274, Summer.
    20. Werner, Katharina & Graf Lambsdorff, Johann, 2016. "Emotional numbing and lessons learned after a violent conflict - Experimental evidence from Ambon, Indonesia," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-74-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:60:y:2023:i:6:p:985-1001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.prio.no/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.