Essays on Violence, Money in Politics, and Electoral System in Colombia Nelson Alejandro Ruiz

167 Pages·2017·5.08 MB·English

The London School of Economics and Political Science
Essays on Violence, Money in Politics, and
Electoral System in Colombia
Nelson Alejandro Ruiz Guar´ın
All rights reserved
PhD thesis submitted to the Department of International De-
velopment of the London School of Economics for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
London, October 2nd 2017
1
Declaration
I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the
London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than
where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent
of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it).
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permit-
ted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced
without my prior written consent.
I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the
rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 65649 words.
Statement of conjoint work
I confirm that Chapter 1 was jointly co-authored with Leopoldo Fergusson, Juan
Vargas and Pablo Querubin, I contributed to 50% of this work.
I confirm that Chapter 3 was jointly co-authored with Dominik Hangartner (sec-
ondary supervisor), and Janne Tukiainen, I contributed to 50% of this work.
Statement of inclusion of previous work
I can confirm that chapter 1 (Real Winners Curse), very early draft was presented
as single authored coursework for MY557 - Causal Inference for Observational Studies.
This course was part of the PhD coursework.
Statement of use of third party for editorial help.
I can confirm that chapter 1 and 2 were edited by Kelley Friel, academic editor.
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Acknowledgments
“A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism (...) or power-seeking
oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking”
Immanuel Kant 1784 in “What is Enlightenment”.
I had always wondered why there are societies which can guarantee welfare to their
members and others which seem to be destined to poverty, and if anything can be
done about it. This led me to pursue education in economics and political science.
After some years working at an international development organization, I decided to
pursue an academic career in search for answers and intellectual independence. I was
convinced that through the power of public reason, as argued by Kant, society could
improve. This PhD is a product of my constant search for answers, my belief in the use
of public reason, my belief in the importance of evidence, and a worry for the issues
my home country, Colombia, faces.
Doing a PhD in four years and partly self-funded was a daunting task. I believe an
individual’s achievements are a product of the people who influence him. First I am
grateful to the tireless effort of my parents who worked hard most of their lives so I
could have a great upbringing and the best education possible to pursue my dreams.
I am grateful to my family with who I have happy memories with. A PhD wouldn’t
be possible without academic support. I am grateful to my supervisors Jean-Paul,
Dominik, and Sandra. Jean-Paul brought me into the PhD, and I am grateful for his
support through countless references and his good humor. Dominik believed in me as
a potential academic, and brought me on-board as his supervisee. He was supportive
during the PhD process both academically and personally, and his financial support
was crucial in times of financial need. To Sandra’s friendliness and her advice about
the academic job market. I am grateful for the innumerable seminars that LSE staff
organizes, where I was able to meet numerous academics that kept me inspired. I am
also grateful to the discussions with other LSE PhD students and professors.
Outside LSE I’m thankful to Pablo Querub´ın, for his constant support through my
PhD, helping set up my visit to the US and his availability to discuss papers and ideas.
I learned a lot from working with Pablo, not only academically but on the importance
of humbleness, listening, and helping students. I am thankful to the other students
I met while visiting NYU and Harvard, for the motivating intellectual exchange. My
time spent in the US taking courses and presenting my work at a multitude of venues
was very helpful.
I am also grateful to the countless friends I encountered through the different life
stages: myundergraduateinEconomicsfriendsatUniversityofLosAndesinColombia,
who are some of the smartest, hard working and most inspiring people I’ve ever met.
To this day we still keep in contact to discuss academia or life. To my childhood
friends, Jairo, Javier and Leo, who have always been there. To the friends I made
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while working in Washington DC, and the innumerable parties we had. Liliana for
our countless hours discussing a variety of topics on the phone. The friends that I
made while studying the MSc and PhD at LSE, and friends at Goodenough College
with who we had countless dinners right before closing time. I am gratefully to Aimee
for the happy memories. I am especially thankful to Andr´es Corredor Fonseca, whose
friendship was very influential shaping the person who I am today. This thesis is
dedicated to the his memory.
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Essays on Conflict, Money in Politics,
and Electoral System in Colombia
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the political economy of development, in particular on the
causes and consequences of political selection of leaders. It analyses how different
electoral systems can determine the type of politician that runs in elections, and the
effects of electing different politician types.
The first paper studies the consequences of electoral victory of newcomer political
parties in a context of newly-introduced local elections and weak institutions. Using a
regression discontinuity approach, we find that narrow electoral victories of previously
excluded left-wing parties to local executive office in Colombia result in an almost
one-standard-deviation increase in violent attacks by right-wing paramilitaries against
municipalities that elected-left wing parties. Violence can surge as a de facto reaction
of traditional political and economic elites when there is a victory of radically different
groups and in the absence of monopoly on violence. This paper shows that the intro-
duction of elections does not necessarily lead to less violence, but can lead to more
violence when the electoral winner are newcomers with radically different ideas.
The second paper focuses on the consequences of electing a politician funded by
donors, and how such politicians may benefit his/her donors disproportionately. Us-
ing a novel dataset that uniquely identifies campaign donors and recipients of public
contracts during a mayor’s incumbency period in Colombia, I find that barely elect-
ing a politician who received donations more than doubles the probability of donors
receiving contracts from a mean of 5.9% to 15.5%. Moreover, electing a donor funded
politician does not lead to lower local government deficit, nor increasing investment,
but it does increase the probability of having a disciplinary sanctions against them,
and investigations related to public procurement. I then study the role that campaign
contribution limits can play in undermining the role of money in politics. Results in-
dicate that campaign limits lead to less participation of donor funding in campaigns,
and as a result reduces the number of contracts that the mayor will reward to donors.
This paper shows evidence of the consequences of electing a donor funded politician,
and how campaign limits can reduce the influence of campaign contributions.
The third paper studies how open or closed lists in proportional representation
systems can affect electoral performance and political selection. In open lists, a candi-
date’s internal party ranking is determined by voter preferences, in contrast to closed
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lists, in which ranking is predetermined by party preferences. Colombia provides a
unique electoral system where parties can field open or closed lists in municipal elec-
tions, producing a mixed-list type of electoral system. Using qualitative interviews and
constructing a new dataset on politician characteristics and campaign investment, we
find that open lists (vs closed lists) produce better electoral returns to the party, induce
higher campaign efforts by candidates, and select higher-quality candidates–that are
less likely to have registered illegally to vote, and have more political experience. This
paper shows that voter discretion – trough open lists – can have a dramatic effect on
party performance and on the type of politicians ranked in elections.
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Contents
1 Real Winner’s Curse 13
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2 Context: Local elections in Colombia’s political landscape . . . . . . . 18
1.3 Empirical strategy and data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.2 RD Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.4 Main results and robustness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4.1 Baseline results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4.2 Robustness to party coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.4.3 Ruling Out Pre-Existing Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.4.4 Were Left-Wing Victories Anticipated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.5 Alternative interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.6 Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.7 The consequences of violent paramilitary responses . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.8 Evidence from case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.9 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.10 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.11 Data appendix: description of coding protocol and variables . . . . . . 51
1.11.1 Coding left-wing and right-wing parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.11.2 Coding the ideological stance of victims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
1.11.3 Additional variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
1.12 Additional results and robustness tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
1.12.1 Balance on covariates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
1.12.2 Robustness to party coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
1.12.3 Dropping Recurring Municipaities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
1.12.4 Alternative Interpretations: right wing parties, new parties and
the UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
1.12.5 Incumbency disadvantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2 The Power of Money. The consequences of electing a donor funded
politician 71
2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
2.2 Related literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.2.1 Donors and candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2.3 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.3.1 Colombian institutions and electoral context . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.4 Empirical strategy and data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.4.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
7
2.4.2 RD Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.4.3 Text analysis and contract price comparison . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.4.4 Fuzzy RDD Set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.5.1 Effects of electing a donor-funded politician . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.5.2 Mechanism for benefiting donors: underlying contract character-
istics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2.5.3 Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.5.4 Effects of campaign limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
2.7 Tables and figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
2.7.1 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
2.7.2 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
2.7.3 Effects of electing a donor funded politician . . . . . . . . . . . 107
2.7.4 Contract Level results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
2.7.5 Donor Level results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
2.7.6 Price premium for donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
2.7.7 Results on Campaign Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
2.7.8 Online Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3 Open or closed? How list type affects electoral success, candidate
selection and campaign effort 121
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.2 Election Reforms in Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.3 Data, and Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.4 What is the effect of open-/closed list on parties’ electoral success? . . 128
3.5 Why Do Parties Fare Better With Open-list? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.6 Why Do Some Parties Sometimes Choose Closed-List? . . . . . . . . . 133
3.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
3.8 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
3.9 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
3.10 Appendix A: Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.10.1 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.10.2 Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.10.3 Who decides on list type? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
3.10.4 Advantages of open and closed lists? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
3.11 Appendix C: Additional results and variable descriptions . . . . . . . . 149
3.12 Appendix D: Determinants of list choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
3.13 Appendix E: Additional robustness checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
References 160
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List of Tables
1.1 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on paramilitary attacks . . . . . . . 40
1.2 Effectofelectingaleft-wingmayoronotherformsofviolence, corruption
and government performance measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
1.3 Effect of electing a right-wing mayor on violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.4 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on paramilitary attacks Heteroge-
neous effects by timing of AUC demobilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.5 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on paramilitary attacks Heteroge-
neous effects by year of violence after the election . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1.6 Incumbency advantage in Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.7 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on land registry updates . . . . . . 46
1.8 DescriptiveStatisticsofmainvariables(Sample: Electoralracesinwhich
left-wing parties won or came second: 1997- 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
1.9 Variables and sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1.10 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on municipal characteristics . . . . 62
1.11 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on paramilitary attacks (Alternative
samples resulting from different codings of party ideology) . . . . . . . 64
1.12 Descriptive statistics of the main variables Sample: Electoral races in
which right-wing parties are winners or runners-up: 1997 - 2014 . . . . 66
1.13 Effect of electing a mayor from a new (non-left) party on paramilitary
attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
1.14 Effect of electing a left-wing mayor on paramilitary attacks (Differential
effect of UP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
1.15 IncumbencyadvantageinColombiausingalternativeapproach(notcon-
ditioning on past incumbency) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.1 Donations Codebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
2.2 Descriptive Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
2.3 Sources of campaign income across candidate types, % of Total Income 108
2.4 Sources of campaign spending across candidate types, % of Total Spending108
2.5 Differencesinindividualcharacteristicsbetweendonorfundedpoliticians
and non-donor funded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
2.6 Donors assignment of contracts in donor funded vs non-donor funded
incumbencies: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
2.7 Effect of electing a donor funded politician on Contract Given to any
donor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
2.8 Effect of electing donor-funded politicians on total number of contracts
for donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
2.9 Smooth manipulation covariates across the donor funded victory cut-off 110
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2.10 Smooth municipality covariates across the donor funded victory cut-off 110
2.11 Smooth campaign and municipality covariates across the donor funded
victory cut-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
2.12 Effect of electing rightwing politician on probability of giving contracts
to donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
2.13 Effect of electing a politician with political experience on probability of
giving contracts to donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
2.14 Effect of electing a donor funded politician on fiscal policy variables . . 112
2.15 Effect of electing a donor funded politician on mayor being sanctioned 113
2.16 Effect of electing a donor funded politician on investigation or sanctions
related to contracting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
2.17 Comparison of contracts by Mayor type, and whether the contractors
were donors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
2.18 Comparison of contract types by Mayor type, and whether the contrac-
tors were donors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
2.19 Comparison of contracts sector by Mayor type, and whether the con-
tractors were donors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
2.20 Comparison of contractors by Mayor type, and whether the contractors
were donors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
2.21 Descriptive statistics multiplier to investment and contract value . . . 115
2.22 Donor average returns conditional on electoral victory of donor funded
politicians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
2.23 Price Comparison of similar type of contracts for donors and non-donors 115
2.24 Effect of looser campaign limits on: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
2.25 Effect of looser campaign limints on: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
2.26 Smooth predetermined municipality covariates across looser campaign
limits cut-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
2.27 Smooth predetermined municipality covariates across looser campaign
limits cut-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
2.28 Effects of looser campaign limits on total number of contracts for donors 118
2.29 Effects of looser campaign limits on probability of donors obtaining con-
tracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
2.30 Differences in municipality characteristics between campaign sources re-
porting municipalities and non-reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
2.31 Differences in municipality characteristics between in sample and out of
sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
3.1 Share of municipalities (of total municipalities) with number of closed
lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
3.2 Share of municipalities with %of closed lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
3.3 Descriptive Statistics and Differences in Means Across List Type . . . . 137
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