The stick and carrot strategy: An empirical analysis of governmental intervention against illegal crops in front of the killings of social leaders

Abstract

Civil society participation is required to achieve strong peace agreements; however, these often fail to end conflicts and get durable peace when the physical security of the parties involved is not guaranteed. In Colombia, civil society has participated actively in peace agreements through the representation of social leaders. I study how the government eradication strategy is affected when the voluntary eradication program (PNIS) is implemented in municipalities where illegal criminal organizations threaten the security of social leaders; this paper estimates the effect of implementing the PNIS program in municipalities with potential exposure to violence for social leaders over the hectares of coca eradicated by government legitimate armed forces. I estimate the causal impact of treatment using micro-data at the municipal level and implement a difference-in-differences strategy with staggered adoption. I find that the rate of coca hectares manually forced eradicated (The stick strategy) increased by 6,5\% after the PNIS program (The carrot strategy) began its implementation in municipalities with potential exposure to violence against social leaders and thus a deterioration of the PNIS program took place. The magnitude of this impact is intensified by other relevant variables such as the strength of legitimate armed forces (16,6\%) and the contending of criminal organizations to take control of territories (14\%). In contrast, I did not find effects on legal crop cultivation due to voluntary crop substitution.