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How Government Reactions to Violence Worsen Social Welfare: Evidence from Peru
Author(s) -
Sexton Renard,
Wellhausen Rachel L.,
Findley Michael G.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12415
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , welfare , social welfare , negotiation , case fatality rate , affect (linguistics) , political science , public economics , business , demographic economics , development economics , economics , environmental health , medicine , psychology , law , philosophy , linguistics , population , communication
Dissident violence inflicts many costs on society, but some of the longest‐lasting consequences for civilians may be indirect, due to the government's response. We explore how government policy responses affect social welfare, specifically through budgetary shifts. Using subnational violence and budgeting data for Peru, we demonstrate that attacks on soldiers during the budget negotiation period drive a shift from local social services, especially health, to defense. One soldier fatality implies a 0.13 percentage point reduction in the local health budget share (2008–12). Health budget cuts due to a single soldier fatality result in 76 predicted additional infant deaths 2 years later. We show that the effect on health budgeting operates through decreases in women's use of health facilities and postnatal services. We offer evidence that Peru's coercive response indirectly harms civilians due to butter‐to‐guns budgetary shifts. Our results identify a budgetary mechanism that translates dissident violence into a deterioration in social welfare.