State violence and support for peace: The Colombian case

With Linette Page.

Violence is thought to erode trust in the state while increasing support for peace. But what happens when the state is the perpetrator? This study examines Colombia’s “false positives” scandal, the military’s extrajudicial killing of civilians presented as guerrilla combatants. Comparing similar municipalities with kernel weighting, it finds that exposure to state violence is associated with lower municipal-level support for peace, though the result is sensitive to confounding and not yet conclusive as a causal claim. <!– Write more about this project below this line. For example:

Research question

Data and methods

Presentations: Midwest Political Science Association Conference 2026

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