What factors drive trust in police after civil wars: the case of Colombia

ABSTRACT

We know that civil wars have negative and long-term consequences for public trust in state institutions. However, few studies have examined the post-peace challenges of rebuilding trust in state institutions. In this study, we utilise the case of Colombia to explore the impact of civil wars on the institutional trust of the police. We find that perspectives on abuse, punishment, and corruption are significant predictors of trust in the Colombian police. Further, we find that when we test all three phenomena together, perceptions of police abuse and experience with bribery are the key drivers of trust of police in Colombia.

KEYWORDS:

• Public opinion
• trust in police
• civil conflict
• post-conflict
• Colombia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the case of victims of murder or forced disappearance, reporting is by persons who are a child, parent, grandparent, part of the household, spouse, permanent companion, same-sex partner, or part of the victim’s household.

2. Appendix A provides the correlations between each of the independent variables. There is one moderate correlation relationship between education and age correlation = −0.34). There is one strong correlation between education and income (correlation = 0.55). In neither instance, do these moderate and strong levels of correlation impact the stability of the model.

3. In addition to estimating the models with OLS regression, we also estimated the model using an ordered logistic regression model. The results are presented in Appendix B. Substantively and statistically, the OLS regression model and the ordered logistic regression results are consistent. We opted to show the OLS regression results as the 7-category dependent variable can be taxing for the ordered logistic regression model and the interpretation of the results.

4. The goodness-of-fit tests indicate that the inclusion of the independent variable significantly explains the variance in the dependent variable. For example, the R² for model (1) indicates the model explains 50% of the variance of trust in the police, model (2) explains 7.7% of the variance, model (3) explains 6.9% of the variance, and model (4) explains 51.5% of the variance. In addition, the F test for each model is statistically significant, indicating the models provide a better fit to the data than a model with no predictors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Regina P. Branton

Regina P. Branton is Marshall A. Rauch Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. My research and teaching interests revolve around the behavioral, electoral, and institutional implications of race/ethnicity and gender.

Diego Esparza

Diego Esparza is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on police, public security reform, and civil-military relations in Latin America. His work has been published in the Journal of Politics in Latin America, Social Science Quarterly, Democracy and Security, Defense and Security Analysis, and Comparative Political Studies. In addition, Esparza has a book publication titled “Policing and Politics in Latin America: When Law Enforcement Breaks the Law ” with Lynne Rienner Publishers. He is regularly invited to do presentations for the Department of the Navy and Department of Homeland Security in the areas of intelligence, civil-military relations, national security, and Latin American politics.

James Meernik

James Meernik is Regents Professor of Political Science and Director of the Castleberry Peace Institute at the University of North Texas. He has taught at the University of North Texas since 1991. He specializes in research on post conflict peace building, language endangerment and political instability and international tribunals. Currently, Professor Meernik is working on projects related to the peace process, reconciliation and transitional justice with organizations on projects related to ex combatants and victims in Colombia, victim and witness testimony at international tribunals, and language endangerment in Colombia and northeast India.