Land Redistribution and Coercive Violence

Abstract

In a post land reform environment, violence and redistribution are substitutes for an opportunistic incumbent attempting industrialization. We setup a theoretical model to explore this relationship for individual and group level violence across two types of policy driven post land-reform industrialization (PLRI)— small and large-scale, in the Indian state of West Bengal. We find strong evidence for our theoretical prediction of an inverse relationship between land redistribution and both types of violence during the period of small scale industrialization after an industrial policy was announced in 1994-95 by the incumbent. This relationship however breaks down for individual level violence during attempts at large-scale industrialization between 2006-2011, even though both types of violence increase in this phase.