Doctoral Dissertation Research: State Power, Road Development and Internal Violence

Emory University, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

General Summary This project addresses the following question: Under what conditions do increases in the presence and territorial reach of a state's security forces increase popular support for the state? Many academics and policymakers argue that insurgencies thrive in areas where the state is absent. The conventional wisdom is that increasing the presence of state security forces in these resistive areas improves the legitimacy of the regime and serve to shift popular support in the state's favor. However, the empirical evidence concerning the effects of state power and territorial reach is decidedly mixed. The PI argues that the interaction between state coercive power and the social dynamics surrounding noncombatant support influence how increases in state presence affect many civil conflict dynamic and popular support in particular. If insurgents leverage a shared ethnicity identity to mobilize popular support, the encroachment of state security forces will validate the group's mobilization narrative, decreasing support for the state. However, when insurgents use appeals to a common ideology in their mobilization narratives, an increased presence of state security forces can effectively deter the population from supporting an insurgent movement. These two types of insurgent conflicts condition the relationship between the presence of security forces and support of the state. Technical Summary This project leverages a unique rural road development program the government of India enacted in 2000, while the state currently faces ethnically motivated insurgent groups in central India. This project extends to the central Indian state of Bihar a survey measuring (1) how/if rural road development projects increase the presence of state security forces in troubled areas and (2) if this increased presence affects the balance of popular support. An initial survey in the state of Assam (conducted during the summer of 2015) provided support for the hypothesis that in ethnic conflicts state presence decreases popular support. In the current study, the survey will assess whether increases in the frequency of military and police patrols increase popular support for the state in ideological conflict. This project surveys households in villages across conflict-affected districts. These villages had an equal probability of receiving the treatment of road construction. Half the villages received the treatment, while half did not. To avoid social desirability bias, the PI uses item-count questions as well as elite interviews. The PI then uses these data in a Coarsened Exact Matching research design to show (1) that road development increases the frequency in which the state patrols an area, and (2) that this increased presence works to drive down support for the state in ethnically-motivated conflicts and increases popular support in ideologically-driven conflicts. In doing so, this project provides an important test of these increasingly important counterinsurgent tactics and strategies.