Fear and Dreams: Understanding the Non-Institutional Sources of Leader Strategy

Maria Angélica Bautista (), Juan Galán, James A. Robinson (), Rafael Torres () and Ragnar Torvik
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Maria Angélica Bautista: University of Chicago
James A. Robinson: University of Chicago
Rafael Torres: University of Chicago

No 21198, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: Political leaders make policy choices which are often hard to explain via institutions. We use the behavior of Colombian paramilitary groups as an environment to study non-institutional sources of variation in how public good provision and violence are combined to control populations. We hypothesize that a significant source of variation stems from the social preferences of the paramilitary commanders. Reciprocators adopt a strategy of offering public goods in exchange for support, but also use violence to punish those who do not reciprocate back. Reciprocity, developed via childhood socialization, is a characteristic of rural “peasants”. We develop a model which generates these hypotheses and test them using a unique dataset compiled from transitional justice documents.

Keywords: Leader Behavior; Public Goods; Violence; Socialization. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D90 H42 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 110 pages
Date: 2024-09-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam
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Working Paper: Fear and Dreams: Understanding the Non-Institutional sources of Leader Strategy (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:021198

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