Bases, Bullets and Ballots: the Effect of U.S. Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia

Oeindrila Dube and Suresh Naidu

No 20213, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Does foreign military assistance strengthen or further weaken fragile states facing internal conflict? Aid may strengthen the state by bolstering its repressive capacity vis-à-vis armed non-state actors, or weaken it if resources are diverted to these very groups. We examine how U.S. military aid affects political violence in Colombia. We exploit the allocation of U.S. military aid to Colombian military bases, and compare how aid affects municipalities with and without bases. We use an instrument based on worldwide increases in U.S. military aid (excluding Latin America). We find that U.S. military assistance leads to differential increases in attacks by paramilitaries, but has no effect on guerrilla attacks. Aid also results in more paramilitary (but not guerrilla) homicides during election years, particularly in politically competitive municipalities. The findings suggest that foreign military assistance may strengthen armed non-state actors, undermining domestic political institutions.

JEL-codes: H56 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-lam and nep-pol
Note: DEV POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Published as Dube, Oeindrila and Suresh Naidu, 2015: "Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of US Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia," The Journal of Politics, 77(1): 249-267.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w20213.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of U.S. Military Aid on Political Conflict in Colombia (2010)
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:nbr:nberwo:20213

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w20213

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().