 Policing and the Legacies of Wartime State Predation: Evidence from a Survey and Field Experiment in LiberiaRobert A. Blair and Benjamin S. Morse Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2021, vol. 65, issue 10, 1709-1737 Abstract: How does violence during civil war shape citizens’ willingness to trust and rely on state security providers in the post-conflict period? Can post-conflict security sector reform restore perceptions of state security forces among victims of wartime state predation? Using a survey and field experiment in Liberia, we show that rebel-perpetrated violence is strongly positively correlated with trust and reliance on the police after conflict is over, while state-perpetrated violence is not. Victims of wartime state predation are, however, more likely to update their priors about the police in response to positive interactions with newly reformed police officers. We also show that abuses committed by police officers in the post-conflict period are negatively correlated with citizens’ perceptions of the police, potentially counteracting the positive effects of security sector reform. We corroborate our quantitative findings with detailed qualitative observations of interactions between civilians and police officers in the field. Keywords: police; civil wars; state predation; field experiments; security sector reform; peacebuilding (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:65:y:2021:i:10:p:1709-1737 DOI: 10.1177/00220027211013096 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International) |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.