Publications
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We study the effects of a non-governmental civic inclusion campaign on the democratic integration of demobilized insurgents. Democratic participation ideally offers insurgents a peaceful channel for political expression and addressing grievances. However, existing work suggests that former combatant's ideological socialization and experiences of violence fuel hard-line commitments which may be contrary to democratic political engagement, threatening the effectiveness of postwar electoral transitions. We use a field experiment with demobilized FARC combatants in Colombia to study how a civic inclusion campaign affects trust in political institutions, democratic political participation, and preferences for strategic moderation versus ideological rigidity. We find the campaign increased trust in democracy and support for political compromise. Effects are driven by the most educated ex-combatants moving from their hard-line position to one that is in line with their more strategic peers, and by ex-combatants who had the most violent conflict experience similarly moderating their views.
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In this note, we draw on our experience to explain how one can conduct experimental research with former combatants and in settings affected by violence in ways that are scientifically rigorous while also respecting ethical and security imperatives. We draw on our own research in Colombia, which we began during the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC - a unique opportunity to study combatants as they transitioned into becoming ex-combatants.
Book Project
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This book project argues that rebel parties encounter unique intra-group barriers to their political integration and ongoing participation, beyond the general challenges faced by new parties. Each chapter theoretically and empirically outlines four different conflicts: elites vs. grassroots, radicals vs. pragmatists, signatories vs. dissidents, and the armed ideologues vs. the non-armed ideologues. To illustrate the nature of these conflicts and their implications for mobilization I study the Comunes party, founded by the FARC guerrilla upon signing the 2016 peace agreement. I draw on original survey data on ex-combatants, a measure of regional party consolidation, electoral data, semi-structured interviews with former FARC commanders and peace agreement negotiators, and data on campaign messaging. The concluding chapters elaborate on sources of resilience and implications for policymakers and civil society.
Under Review
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Peace settlements ending civil wars often pursue political solutions that require violent actors to form political parties and engage with politics peacefully. Some settlements include provisions such as reservations, quotas or other types of political affirmative action to safeguard electoral transitions. What are the consequences of these institutional safeguards on rebel parties' grassroots? Scholarship on political affirmative action generally concludes that reservations benefit targeted groups. However, I posit that these safeguards may hinder the consolidation of rebel parties by generating counterproductive incentives that demobilize the party base. I study the case of the former FARC-EP party Comunes, who were granted 10 legislative seats in the 2016 peace agreement. I implement a priming experiment with this crucial but difficult to reach population to assess the consequences of this provision. On average, primed participants reported less interest in a range of party-building activities. Heterogeneity suggests these safeguards may come at the cost of civilian grassroots specifically, further concentrating rebel party activism among ex-combatants.
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The viability of rebel parties as long term political contenders depends in part, on acceptance of them as legitimate political actors. Yet existing work suggests that civilians often punish perpetrators of past violence at the ballot box and that conflict generates long-term antipathies. This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to clarify when and why civilians are more likely to penalize rebel parties. First we conduct a series of semi-structured interviews with Comunes party leaders and members. These uniformly claim that civilian stigmatization of the party is pervasive. Second, we design an endorsement experiment to measure the extent of aversion toward the party and whether it is distinct from assessments based on ideology or platform. Findings show that civilians penalize policies endorsed by Comunes and their endorsement elicits aversion even when compared to the endorsement of other ideologically similar parties.
In Progress
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In this project, co-authored with Cyrus Samii (NYU) and Mateo Vásquez-Cortés (UCSD), we evaluate a strategy designed to promote the political efficacy and post-conflict mobilization of local women’s organizations that emerged during the war in Colombia. These interventions were based on informational and deliberation-centered strategies designed to minimize costs of collective action and information-sharing on risks associated to participation. This project is currently in the data cleaning and analysis phase, as all workshops have been conducted with nearly 400 participants from over 35 local organizations across the Colombian territory. This work is supported by the Folke Bernadotte Academy.
[Data analysis in progress]
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This research examines the impact of rebel electoral participation on state investment in conflict zones, addressing the implicit argument in rebel-party transition literature that democratic transitions promote peace by enabling insurgents to achieve their goals through political means rather than violence. Focusing on a core demand of most insurgents - increased state investment and economic development for their constituents - this study employs a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the effect of rebel participation on public goods provision, using luminosity and urbanization satellite imagery as proxies. Findings indicate a nuanced relationship between rebel electoral participation and state investment. Surprisingly, neither rebel parties retaining armed wings nor those gaining more power through elections demonstrate greater effectiveness in governance. Instead, the quality of democratic institutions emerges as a critical factor in determining the extent to which rebel party participation benefits their constituents.
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Although the brutal nature of drug cartel violence in Mexico is widely recognized, the causes of specific abuses of women and of pueblos indígenas remain poorly understood. We are leveraging text analysis of national and regional media reports to measure disaggregated sub-national and over-time measures of cartel presence and group-specific victimization. We are also using panel micro survey data to analyze whether local norms, resource competition, and state capacity exacerbate the vulnerability of these groups and data to explore the implications of cartel victimization for the political representation and migration of these groups.
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The long-term political engagement of rebel parties is fundamental to whether electoral transitions succeed in transforming conflict. In this paper, I offer a new conceptualization of rebel parties’ trajectories, clarify unexamined cross-party variation, and assess the role of electoral success. Scholars have focused on investigating the initial transition of rebel groups into parties, their re-militarization and their electoral popularity. Although these are important outcomes, they mischaracterize the strength of rebel parties’ political engagement. I introduce the concept of party perseverance, which I define as the recurrence of rebel parties’ participation in elections since disarmament. After rebel groups’ initial decision to become a party, their actual engagement in electoral competition is constantly tested. To analyze perseverance, I collect data on all elections with rebel parties from 1947 - 2021, covering 117 parties across 667 elections. First, the data show that while the political integration of groups with violent origins is possible, early commitment does not ensure future participation. While nearly 50% of all rebel parties participate in almost all possible elections, some exist only nominally, and still others cease to exist or return to war. In particular, 10% of parties participate once and never again. Second, descriptive findings suggest that rebel party electoral success does not strictly determine perseverance, despite often being theorized as one in the same. To illustrate, 45% of low support parties participate in at least 8 out of 10 of elections and 38% of low support parties participate in all elections.