IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/3bncz.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

State-building on the Margin: An Urban Experiment in Medellín

Author

Listed:
  • Blattman, Christopher

    (University of Chicago)

  • Duncan, Gustavo
  • Lessing, Benjamin
  • Tobon, Santiago

Abstract

Medellin’s government wanted to raise its efficacy, legitimacy, and control. The city identified 80 neighborhoods with weak state presence and competing armed actors. In half, they increased non-police street presence tenfold for two years, offering social services and dispute resolution. In places where the state was initially weakest, the intervention did not work, mainly because the government struggled to deliver on its promises. Where the state began stronger, the government raised opinions of its services and legitimacy. If there are indeed low marginal returns to investing in capacity in the least-governed areas, this could produce increasing returns to state-building.

Suggested Citation

  • Blattman, Christopher & Duncan, Gustavo & Lessing, Benjamin & Tobon, Santiago, 2022. "State-building on the Margin: An Urban Experiment in Medellín," SocArXiv 3bncz, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:3bncz
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/3bncz
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/61e6eda195a030067ced4529/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/3bncz?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. van der Windt, Peter & Humphreys, Macartan & Medina, Lily & Timmons, Jeffrey F. & Voors, Maarten, 2019. "Citizen Attitudes Toward Traditional and State Authorities: Substitutes or Complements?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(12), pages 1810-1840.
    2. Stergios Skaperdas, 2001. "The political economy of organized crime: providing protection when the state does not," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 173-202, November.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Ali Cheema & Asim I. Khwaja & James A. Robinson, 2020. "Trust in State and Nonstate Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(8), pages 3090-3147.
    4. del Castillo, Graciana, 2008. "Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199237739.
    5. Karim, Sabrina, 2020. "Relational State Building in Areas of Limited Statehood: Experimental Evidence on the Attitudes of the Police," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 536-551, May.
    6. Blattman, Christopher & Lessing, Benjamin & Tobon, Santiago & Duncan, Gustavo, 2021. "Gang rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance," SocArXiv 5nyqs, Center for Open Science.
    7. Eli Berman & Jacob N. Shapiro & Joseph H. Felter, 2011. "Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 766-819.
    8. Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra, 2020. "On the Origins of the State: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(1), pages 32-74.
    9. Blattman, Christopher & Hartman, Alexandra C. & Blair, Robert A., 2014. "How to Promote Order and Property Rights under Weak Rule of Law? An Experiment in Changing Dispute Resolution Behavior through Community Education," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(1), pages 100-120, February.
    10. Skarbek, David, 2011. "Governance and Prison Gangs," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 702-716, November.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2020. "Weak States: Causes and Consequences of the Sicilian Mafia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 537-581.
    12. Ghani, Ashraf & Lockhart, Clare, 2009. "Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195398618.
    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. Blattman, Christopher & Lessing, Benjamin & Tobon, Santiago & Duncan, Gustavo, 2021. "Gang rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance," SocArXiv 5nyqs, Center for Open Science.
    2. Skarbek, David, 2016. "Covenants without the Sword? Comparing Prison Self-Governance Globally," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 845-862, November.
    3. Soeren C. Schwuchow, 2023. "Organized crime as a link between inequality and corruption," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 469-509, June.
    4. Gustav Agneman, 2022. "Conflict Victimization and Civilian Obedience: Evidence from Colombia," HiCN Working Papers 379, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. Roth, M. Garrett & Skarbek, David, 2014. "Prison Gangs and the Community Responsibility System," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(3), pages 223-243, May.
    6. Ennio E. Piano, 2018. "Outlaw and economics: Biker gangs and club goods," Rationality and Society, , vol. 30(3), pages 350-376, August.
    7. Skarbek, David, 2012. "Prison gangs, norms, and organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 96-109.
    8. Freire, Danilo, 2017. "Prison Gangs," SocArXiv kuqqx, Center for Open Science.
    9. Cavgias, Alexsandros & Bruce, Raphael & Meloni, Luis, 2023. "Policy enforcement in the presence of organized crime: Evidence from Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    10. Anke Hoeffler & Patricia Justino, 2023. "Aid and fragile states," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-83, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Travers Barclay Child & Elena Nikolova, 2017. "War and Social Attitudes: Revisiting Consensus Views," HiCN Working Papers 258, Households in Conflict Network.
    12. Alexander Fink, 2015. "Governance without a state? Policies and politics in areas of limited statehood meets positive political economy of anarchy: A review essay," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 93-105, March.
    13. Eric Mvukiyehe, 2018. "Promoting Political Participation in War-torn Countries," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(8), pages 1686-1726, September.
    14. Norgaard, Julia R. & Walbert, Harold J. & Hardy, R. August, 2018. "Shadow markets and hierarchies: comparing and modeling networks in the Dark Net," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 877-899, October.
    15. Oleg V. Pavlov & Jason M. Sardell, 2023. "Economic Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: A Simulation Feedback Model," Papers 2304.07975, arXiv.org.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Leopoldo Fergusson & James Robinson & Dario Romero & Juan F. Vargas, 2020. "The Perils of High-Powered Incentives: Evidence from Colombia's False Positives," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 1-43, August.
    17. Raphael Bruce & Alexsandros Cavgias & Luis Meloni, 2022. "Policy Enforcement in the Presence of Organized Crime: Evidence from Rio de Janeiro," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2022_22, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    18. Pablo Balán & Augustin Bergeron & Gabriel Tourek & Jonathan L. Weigel, 2022. "Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 762-797, March.
    19. Santiago Pérez-Cardona, 2022. "Let the rebels rule? Evidence on the economic effects of rebel governance in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 19941, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    20. Winters, Matthew S. & Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey, 2021. "Preferences for traditional and formal sector justice institutions to address land disputes in rural Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:osf:socarx:3bncz. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.