Rebel Governance and Development: The Persistent Effects of Guerrillas in El Salvador

Antonella Agostina Bandiera, Lelys Ileana Dinarte Diaz, Juan Miguel Jimenez, Sandra Viviana Rozo Villarraga and Maria Micaela Sviatschi

No 10222, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: How does territorial control by non-state actors affect long-term development This paper investigates the economic, social, and political consequences of temporary territorial control by guerrillas during the Salvadoran Civil War. During this period, the guerrillas displaced state authorities and promoted the creation of self-governing institutions that were highly representative of local values and openly distrusted the state and elites. Using a spatial regression discontinuity design, the paper shows that areas once under guerrilla control have experienced worse economic outcomes about 30 years after the guerrillas first controlled them, relative to adjacent areas that were then controlled by the formal state. The results suggest that informal community institutions in guerrilla-controlled areas led to enduring land fragmentation and disengagement with the government. The paper argues that when non-state actors develop governance institutions as an alternative to the state, this can lead to negative development effects through lasting norms of distrust of out-groups.

Date: 2022-11-04
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/09953551 ... 7f108ff79e014715.pdf (application/pdf)

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:wbk:wbrwps:10222

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().