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Hector Galindo-Silva, Ph.D.

Barcelona Institute of Political Economy and Governance (IPEG), Spain

Author: Hector Galindo-Silva

Abstract: This study examines the impact of increasing political representation in legislatures on violence and armed conflict. By exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the designated number of councillors in Colombian municipalities, I develop two sets of results. First, regression discontinuity estimates show that in larger municipal councils a considerably higher number of political parties have at least one elected representative. The estimates also reveal that parties with paramilitary links are the main beneficiaries of this greater openness. Second, regression discontinuity estimates show that conflict-related violence, primarily the killing of civilian non-combatants, is substantially lower in municipalities with larger councils. By exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in local election results, I show that the lower level of violence stems from a greater participation in local government by parties with paramilitary links. Using information about the types of violence employed by armed groups, the provision of local public goods, fiscal outcomes and coca cultivation, I argue that armed violence has decreased not because of power- sharing arrangements between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas, or because the paramilitaries are substituting rent extraction for violence, but rather because the guerrillas are deterred from initiating certain types of violence.

Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: H72, D72

Keywords: political representation, violence and armed conflict, councils

Full Text:  “Political Representation and Armed ConfIict: Evidence from Local Councils in Colombia”