Seguridad democrática, presencia de la policía y conflicto en Colombia

Abstract

This article assesses one of the fundamental components of the most iconic policy of the government of Alvaro Uribe: the Democratic Security. In particular we assess the impact on the intensity of the armed conflict, of police deployment and reinforces in municipalities with little of no police presence before August 2002. We use the difference in differences estimator to compare the change in a dynamics of the armed conflict after the allocation of new police forces in the receiving municipalities, relative to the simultaneous change in municipalities that did not receive police. Results suggest that both deployments and reinforces increase the number of guerrilla attacks. On the other hand there is evidence that in the cases in which the allocation of police forces was accompanied by the mobilization of army troops the intensity of the conflict decreased in the affected areas. This suggests that the coordination between armed state forces is key for the success of local security initiatives.