State-Building on the Margin: An Urban Experiment in Medellín

Abstract

Medellin's government wanted to raise its efficacy, legitimacy, and control. The city identified 80 neighborhoods with weak state presence and competing armed actors. In half, they increased non-police street presence tenfold for two years, offering social services and dispute resolution. In places where the state was initially weakest, the intervention did not work, mainly because the government struggled to deliver on its promises. Where the state began stronger, the government raised opinions of its services and legitimacy. If there are indeed low marginal returns to investing in capacity in the least-governed areas, this could produce increasing returns to state-building.

The social consequences of organized crime in Italy

“…Buonanno et al (2021) discuss how the Irpinia earthquake affected social capital due to the ineffectiveness of the state to provide public goods. In Medellin, Blattman et al (2022) show that increasing state presence in areas overrun by organized crime groups has limited influence on state legitimacy because the state struggles to meet citizens' expectations. Similarly, Armingeon and Guthmann (2014) and Armingeon and Ceka (2014) find that citizens have lower institutional trust after economic recessions because people realise state institutions are not able to protect them.…”