Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-plnhv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-08-07T08:39:42.911Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Land, Opportunism, and Displacement in Civil Wars: Evidence from Colombia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2021

JUAN FERNANDO TELLEZ Open the ORCID record for JUAN FERNANDO TELLEZ [Opens in a new window]
JUAN FERNANDO TELLEZ*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis, United States
*
Juan Fernando Tellez, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Davis, United States, jftellez@udavis.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is common for combatants to deliberately force civilians to flee their homes, resulting in incalculable loss for millions around the world. Existing accounts suggest combatants displace civilians whom they suspect are loyal to their opponents. And yet violence is also frequently motivated by local actors taking advantage of war to pursue private interests unrelated to wartime loyalties. However, little evidence exists of these dynamics with respect to displacement. Drawing on theories of opportunistic violence, I test an account in which surges in demand for land create incentives for elites to prey on peasants for their land. Combining new municipal and survey data from the Colombian armed conflict, I find evidence that the expansion of a land-intensive industry—African palm oil—precipitated opportunistic displacement by elites and paramilitary allies. The results demonstrate how elites can take advantage of war to engage in private accumulation and have implications for transitional justice policy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 403 - 418
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Acemoglu, Daron, Robinson, James A., and Santos, Rafael J.. 2013. “The Monopoly of Violence: Evidence from Colombia.” Journal of the European Economic Association 11 (S1): 5–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adhikari, Prakash. 2013. “Conflict-Induced Displacement, Understanding the Causes of Flight.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (1): 82–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertus, Michael. 2020. “Land Reform and Civil Conflict: Theory and Evidence from Peru.” American Journal of Political Science 64 (2): 256–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anders, Therese. 2020. “Territorial Control in Civil Wars: Theory and Measurement Using Machine Learning.” Journal of Peace Research 57 (6): 701–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreas, Peter. 2011. Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Arias, María Alejandra, Camacho, Adriana, Ibáñez, Ana María, Mejía, Danuel, and Rodríguez, Catherine. 2014. Costos económicos y sociales del conflicto en Colombia:¿ Cómo construir un posconflicto sostenible? Bogotá, Columbia: Ediciones Uniandes-Universidad de los Andes.Google Scholar
Arteaga, Julián, Osorio, Carolina Castro, Cuéllar, Diana, Ibáñez, Ana María, Botero, Rocío Londoño, Murcia, Manuel, Neva, Javier, and Rey, Dora Inés. 2017. “Fondo de Tierras del Acuerdo Agrario de La Habana: Estimaciones y Propuestas Alternativas.” Technical Report 015630 Universidad de los Andes—CEDE.Google Scholar
Ávila, Ariel F., and Romero, Mauricio. 2011. La economía de los paramilitares: Redes de corrupción, negocios y política. Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris: Random House Mondadori.Google Scholar
Azam, Jean-Paul, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2002. “Violence against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?” Journal of Peace Research 39 (4): 461–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balcells, Laia, and Steele, Abbey. 2016. “Warfare, Political Identities, and Displacement in Spain and Colombia.” Political Geography 51: 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballvé, Teo. 2012. “Everyday State Formation: Territory, Decentralization, and the Narco Landgrab in Colombia.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 (4): 603–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballvé, Teo. 2013. “Grassroots Masquerades: Development, Paramilitaries, and Land Laundering in Colombia.” Geoforum 50: 62–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazzi, Samuel, and Blattman, Christopher. 2014. “Economic Shocks and Conflict: Evidence from Commodity Prices.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 6 (4): 1–38.Google Scholar
Berman, Nicolas, Couttenier, Mathieu, Rohner, Dominic, and Thoenig, Mathias. 2017. “This Mine is Mine! How Minerals Fuel Conflicts in Africa.” American Economic Review 107 (6): 1564–1610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Persson, Torsten. 2011. Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Borras, Saturnino M., Franco, Jennifer C., Gómez, Sergio, Kay, Cristóbal, and Spoor, Max. 2012. “Land Grabbing in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 39 (3–4): 845–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borras, Saturnino M., Hall, Ruth, Scoones, Ian, White, Ben, and Wolford, Wendy. 2011. “Towards a Better Understanding of Global Land Grabbing: An Editorial Introduction.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (2): 209–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brückner, Markus, and Ciccone, Antonio. 2010. “International Commodity Prices, Growth and the Outbreak of Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The Economic Journal 120 (544): 519–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullock, Will, Imai, Kosuke, and Shapiro, Jacob N.. 2011. “Statistical Analysis of Endorsement Experiments: Measuring Support for Militant Groups in Pakistan.” Political Analysis 19 (4): 363–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ch, Rafael, Shapiro, Jacob, Steele, Abbey, and Vargas, Juan F.. 2018. “Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia.” American Political Science Review 112 (4): 996–1015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christia, Fotini. 2012. Alliance Formation in Civil Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dal Bó, Ernesto, and Bó, Pedro Dal. 2011. “Workers, Warriors, and Criminals: Social Conflict in General Equilibrium.” Journal of the European Economic Association 9 (4): 646–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, Sarah Zukerman. 2012. “Organizational Legacies of Violence: Conditions Favoring Insurgency Onset in Colombia, 1964–1984.” Journal of Peace Research 49 (3): 473–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Christian, and Ball, Patrick. 2002. “Views to a Kill: Exploring the Implications of Source Selection in the Case of Guatemalan State Terror, 1977-1995.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (3): 427–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Christina, Moore, Will, and Poe, Steven. 2003. “Sometimes You Just Have to Leave: Domestic Threats and Forced Migration, 1964-1989.” International Interactions 29 (1): 27–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
del Pilar Peña-Huertas, Rocío, Ruiz, Luis Enrique, Parada, María Mónica, Zuleta, Santiago, and Álvarez, Ricardo. 2017. “Legal Dispossession and Civil War in Colombia.” Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (4): 759–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Des Forges, Alison Liebhafsky. 1999. “ Leave None to Tell The story”: Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Dube, Oeindrila, and Vargas, Juan F.. 2013. “Commodity Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Colombia.” The Review of Economic Studies 80 (4): 1384–1421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durán Nuñez, Diana C. 2015. “Conflictos en el Uraba, una bomba de tiempo.” El Espectador. April 2. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/nacional/conflictos-en-el-uraba-una-bomba-de-tiempo/.Google Scholar
Echandía, Camilo, and Salas, Gabriel. 2008. “Dinámica espacial de las muertes violentas en Colombia.” Bogotá: Vicepresidencia de la República, Observatorio del Programa Presidencia de Derechos Humanos y DHI, FONADE.Google Scholar
FEDEPALMA. 2019. “Sistema de Informacion Estadistica del Sector Palmero.” Accessed February 2019. http://sispa.fedepalma.org.Google Scholar
Fergusson, Leopoldo, Querubin, Pablo, Ruiz, Nelson A., and Vargas, Juan F.. 2019. “The Real Winner’s Curse.” Working Paper. https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2017/preliminary/paper/7i9T946z .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Sheila, and Gellately, Robert. 1997. “Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History.” The Journal of Modern History 68 (4): 747–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grajales, Jacobo. 2011. “The Rifle and the Title: Paramilitary Violence, Land Grab and Land Control in Colombia.” Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (4): 771–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Herschell I. 1991. “A General Equilibrium Model of Insurrections.” The American Economic Review 81 (4): 912–921.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Sanín, Francisco. 2019. Clientelistic Warfare: Paramilitaries and the State in Colombia (1982-2007). Oxford: Peter Lang Ltd.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Sanín, Francisco, and Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2014. “Ideology in Civil War: Instrumental Adoption and Beyond.” Journal of Peace Research 51 (2): 213–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Sanín, Francisco, and Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2017. “What Should We Mean by ‘Pattern of Political Violence?’ Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique.” Perspectives on Politics 15 (1): 20–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez Sanín, Francisco, and Reina, Jeniffer Vargas. 2016. El despojo paramilitar y su variación: Quiénes, cómo, por qué. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad del Rosario.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Sanín, Francisco, and Vargas Reina, Jenniffer. 2017. “Agrarian Elite Participation in Colombia’s Civil War.” Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (4): 739–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Derek. 2013. “Primitive Accumulation, Accumulation by Dispossession and the Global Land Grab.” Third World Quarterly 34 (9): 1582–1604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurtado, Mónica, Pereira-Villa, Catherine, and Villa, Edgar. 2017. “Oil Palm Development and Forced Displacement in Colombia: Causal or Spurious?” Cuadernos de Economía 36 (71): 441–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibáñez, Ana María, and Moya, Andrés. 2010. “Do Conflicts Create Poverty Traps? Asset Losses and Recovery for Displaced Households in Colombia.” In The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America, eds. Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Edwards, and Ernesto Schargrodsky, 137–72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibáñez, Ana María, and Vélez, Carlos Eduardo. 2008. “Civil Conflict and Forced Migration: The Micro Determinants and Welfare Losses of Displacement in Colombia.” World Development 36 (4): 659–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idrobo, Nicolás, Mejía, Daniel, and Tribin, Ana María. 2014. “Illegal Gold Mining and Violence in Colombia.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 20 (1): 83–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2003. “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars.” Perspectives on Politics 1 (3): 475–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinosian, Sarah. 2012. “Colombia to Indict 19 Palm Oil Companies For Forced Displacement.” Colombia News, July 31. https://colombiareports.com/colombia-to-indict-19-palm-oil-companies-for-forced-displacement/.Google Scholar
Kriger, Norma. 1988. “The Zimbabwean War of Liberation: Struggles within the Struggle.” Journal of Southern African Studies 14 (2): 304–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunz, Egon F. 1973. “The Refugee in Flight: Kinetic Models and Forms of Displacement.” International Migration Review 7 (2): 125–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeGrand, Catherine. 1986. Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1850-1936. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Lichtenheld, Adam G. 2020. “Explaining Population Displacement Strategies in Civil Wars: A Cross-National Analysis.” International Organization 74 (2): 253–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maher, David. 2015. “Rooted in Violence: Civil War, International Trade and the Expansion of Palm Oil in Colombia.” New Political Economy 20 (2): 299–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manekin, Devorah. 2013. “Violence against Civilians in the Second Intifada: The Moderating Effect of Armed Group Structure on Opportunistic Violence.” Comparative Political Studies 46 (10): 1273–1300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marin-Burgos, Victoria. 2014. “Power, Access and Justice in Commodity Frontiers: The Political Ecology of Access to Land and Palm Oil Expansion in Colombia.” PhD diss. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Mattingly, Daniel C. 2016. “Elite Capture: How Decentralization and Informal Institutions Weaken Property Rights in China.” World Politics 68 (3): 383–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCallin, Barbara. 2012. “Restitution and Legal Pluralism in Contexts of Displacement. Case Studies on Transitional Justice and Displacement.” Technical Report. Brookings–LSE Project on Internal Displacement. Washington, DC: International Center for Transitional Justice.Google Scholar
Miguel, Edward, Satyanath, Shanker, and Sergenti, Ernest. 2004. “Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach.” Journal of Political Economy 112 (4): 725–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mingorance, Fidel, Minelli, Flaminia, and Le Du, Hélène. 2004. “El cultivo de la palma africana en el Chocó: Legalidad ambiental, territorial y derechos humanos.” Technical report. Human Rights Everywhere.Google Scholar
Montero, Dora. 2011. “Curvaradó y Jiguamiandó: La gran prueba de la restitución de tierras de Santos.” Lasillavacia, March 18. https://lasillavacia.com/historias/silla-nacional/curvarado-y-jiguamiando-la-gran-prueba-de-la-restitucion-de-tierras-de-santos.Google Scholar
Palacios, Paola. 2012. “Forced Displacement: Legal versus Illegal Crops.” Defence and Peace Economics 23 (2): 133–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papenfus, Michael M. 2000. “Investing in Oil Palm: An Analysis of Independent Smallholder Oil Palm Adoption in Sumatra, Indonesia.” Southeast Asia Policy Research Working Paper 15.Google Scholar
Patel, Romil. 2016. “How Did a Gold Rush in Eastern DRC Leave Life Unchanged for Its People?” International Business Times UK, July 5. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/how-did-gold-rush-eastern-drc-leave-life-unchanged-people-1568875.Google Scholar
Pedraza, Daniel E. 2019. “Despojo de tierras en contexto de guerra irregular: El caso de las FARC-EP entre 1992 y 2015.” PhD diss. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.Google Scholar
Petersen, Roger D. 2001. Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyes Posada, Alejandro. 2009. Guerreros y campesinos: El despojo de la tierra en Colombia. Cali, Colombia: Norma–FESCOL.Google Scholar
Roldán, Mary. 2002. Blood and Fire: La Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia, 1946–1953. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salehyan, Idean, and Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede. 2007. “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” International Organization 60 (2): 335–66.Google Scholar
Sánchez De La Sierra, Raúl. 2020. “On the Origins of the State: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo.” Journal of Political Economy 128 (1): 32–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez, Gonzalo. 2006. Nuestra guerra sin nombre: Transformaciones del conflicto en Colombia. Cali, Colombia: Editorial Norma.Google Scholar
Stearns, Jason K. 2014. “Causality and Conflict: Tracing the Origins of Armed Groups in the Eastern Congo.” Peacebuilding 2 (2): 157–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Abbey. 2009. “Seeking Safety: Avoiding Displacement and Choosing Destinations in Civil Wars.” Journal of Peace Research 46 (3): 419–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Abbey. 2011. “Electing Displacement: Political Cleansing in Apartado, Colombia.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 55 (3): 423–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Abbey. 2017. Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sun, Liyang, and Abraham, Sarah. 2020. “Estimating Dynamic Treatment Effects in Event Studies with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects.” Journal of Econometrics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2020.09.006.Google Scholar
Thapa, Suraj Bahadur, and Hauff, Edvard. 2005. “Psychological Distress among Displaced Persons During an Armed Conflict in Nepal.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 40 (8): 672–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tellez, Juan, F. 2021. “Replication Data for: Land, Opportunism, and Displacement in Civil Wars: Evidence from Colombia.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. 10.7910/DVN/DG2J0F.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tullis, Paul. 2019. “How the World Got Hooked On Palm Oil.” The Guardian, February 19. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/19/palm-oil-ingredient-biscuits-shampoo-environmental.Google Scholar
UNHCR. 2020. “Figures at a Glance”. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html.Google Scholar
Vargas, Jenniffer, and Uribe, Sonia. 2017. “State, War, and Land Dispossession: The Multiple Paths to Land Concentration.” Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (4): 749–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vargas Reina, Jenniffer. 2021. “Coalitions for Land Grabbing in Wartime: State, Paramilitaries and Elites in Colombia.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 1–21.Google Scholar
Volckhausen, Taran. 2018. “How Colombia became Latin America’s Palm Oil Powerhouse.” Mongabay, May 31. https://news.mongabay.com/2018/05/how-colombia-became-latin-americas-palm-oil-powerhouse/.Google Scholar
Walker, Robert, Moran, Emilio, and Anselin, Luc. 2000. “Deforestation and Cattle Ranching in the Brazilian Amazon: External Capital and Household Processes.” World Development 28 (4): 683–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinstein, Jeremy M. 2007. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolford, Wendy, Borras, Saturnino M. Jr., Hall, Ruth, Scoones, Ian, and White, Ben. 2013. “Governing Global Land Deals: The Role of the State in the Rush for Land.” Development and Change 44 (2): 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth J. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2009. “Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare?” Politics & Society 37 (1): 131–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, Yiqing. 2017. “Generalized Synthetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models.” Political Analysis 25 (1): 57–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhukov, Yuri M. 2015. “Population Resettlement in War: Theory and Evidence from Soviet Archives.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (7): 1155–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Tellez Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DG2J0F
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Tellez supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Tellez supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 116.6 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.