Mining and violence in Latin America: The state’s coercive responses to anti-mining resistance

Moises Arce and Camilo Nieto-Matiz

World Development, 2024, vol. 173, issue C

Abstract: The expansion of mining and conflict violence are closely related phenomena, but there is widespread variation in the coercive responses state actors embrace to subdue resistance to mining. To explain this variation, we emphasize the interplay of motives (incentives) and opportunities (enabling conditions) available to state actors. Contrasting previous approaches, we provide a cross national analysis on the determinants of coercive responses for all Latin American countries. Our analysis also considers various forms of violent and non-violent coercive responses by the state. Our results support a motive-based explanation: state actors adopt coercive responses when the mobilizing capacity of communities as shown by indigenous involvement is the strongest, and when the economic potential of mining properties as indicated by their lootability is the highest. Our findings have implications for the expansion of extractive activities beyond mining.

Keywords: Mining; Violence; Conflict; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2300222X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:173:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x2300222x

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106404

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().